


We're all Fugitives from the Military!

by MaximumSnow



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Au where there isn't a betrayal in that one spot, Basically an au exploring what if HLVRAI followed Half Life a little more closely, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical swearing, Gen, Mainly was wondering what would happen to the others if they hadn't been in on it., Oh also this is sort of intended as a not a game au, Some things change some don't
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25180537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaximumSnow/pseuds/MaximumSnow
Summary: Anyone who knows original Half-Life knows that the ambush happens in that spot no matter what. What would have happened if the ambush was as rough for the others?
Comments: 60
Kudos: 285





	1. Ambush

After the encounter with the weirdly nimble soldiers, figuring out where to go next was not an easy task. Especially since Gordon’s companions apparently got hung up at the sight of moths. To be fair, he wouldn’t have expected moths to hang out after all the explosions either, but the problem was that they were all wasting ammo trying to hit tiny targets.

WAS THAT A GRENADE LAUNCHER?

He dove out the way as Tommy’s gun flung an explosive towards the bugs fluttering near a light. As the smoke cleared, he tried yelling, “THEY’RE JUST MOTHS!”

More explosions were all he got for his troubles.

Overcome with the sheer ridiculousness, he couldn’t help but break down laughing as he heard Dr. Coomer yell something about tranquilizing them.

Tommy stopped shooting long enough to forcibly hand Gordon something, and it wasn’t until it was in his hands that he realized that it was yet another human skull. “If they’re-if they’re just moths, then how do you explain this, Mr. Freeman?”

… You know what, given everything else, sure. Why _wouldn’t_ there be killer moths that stripped human corpses to the bones? At the rate things were going, that would only rank at number fifteen on the top twenty list of messed up things he had run into today.

Given that the dang things were apparently still unharmed despite all the bullets and grenades, he was grateful when Bubby called for Gordon to meet him on the platform. By the time he got there, Bubby was already pulling a SURFACE ACCESS lever.

Or was trying to.

“Uhhh, want some help?” Gordon offered as he got closer.

“No, dumbass, I’m fine.”

Arguing wouldn’t do anything, so he turned away to keep an eye on the others. Coomer was already nearby, and if Bubby wouldn’t let Gordon help, then Coomer could take over when Bubby inevitably got too frustrated.

Tommy and Benrey joined them after a few minutes, and Gordon would have been more concerned over Tommy’s frightened expression if that hadn’t been the default look ever since this whole mess started. Still, he felt the need to ask, “You good, Tommy?”

“Y-yeah Mr. Freeman. The moths aren’t- They’re being mesmerized by the lamp and ignoring us for now.”

“That’s good.” He reached over patted Tommy’s shoulder. The contact was brief, but Tommy’s tension visibly eased. Which was really good since the taller scientist still had a death grip on his gun.

“You didn’t want your doughnut?” Benrey suddenly asked in his deadpan tone.

“… What? Doughnut?” Gordon was already tired of this conversation and it _just_ started. He didn’t even know where the security guard had _seen_ a doughnut.

Just the mention of it, however, reminded him that he could really go for some cheap fried dough right now.

“Yeah, Tommy handed it to you earlier.” Benrey threw something at Gordon’s feet.

He looked down at the object and yelled in frustration, “THIS IS A _SKULL!_ ”

“It’s got like. Holes in it. Doughnuts have holes.”

“ _Uggghhhh_. That’s not how that works! Doughnuts are made of _dough_ for one thing-”

His rant was cut off by Coomer excitedly yelling, “Let’s go! You can eat your pastry _after_ we get out!”

Gordon sighed and kicked the skull away before following the others back down the ladders. For many reasons, he was glad to get out of that open space, but the hallways ahead felt quiet.

Too quiet.

“Surface access!”

Until his companions decided to play some sort of word game that he couldn’t begin to guess the rules of.  
  
“Surface assess.”

“Surface asses! Let’s go!”

… Okay that one got a chuckle out of him.

The chattering turned into background noise as they walked through the hall, and while he was a little frustrated that they were making noise, another part was grateful that their nonsense made this whole horror show bearable.

Going through this alone would have sucked, and it was hard for the horror to set in when he was forced to listen to Inane Comments FM at any given moment.

He was shaken out of his thoughts when Coomer loudly announced, “This will cut down our travel to the Lambda Lab by about three hours!”

By this point, he didn’t really put much stock in Coomer’s time estimates, but he played along, “Th-that’s the whole thing! The entire duration.”

There was a door leading off from the hallway, and Bubby had no hesitation in going straight towards the medical station that was visible even from where Gordon was standing. The others filed in behind him with Gordon bringing up the rear.

Benrey chose that moment to say, “Oh look a TV with Blu-Ray!” Which caused everyone else to throw in comments on the topic. Even though there was nothing of the sort nearby-

The lights went out.

“Annnnnd the lights are out. Who knocked out the lights? Who’s fucking with me?” Gordon was more exasperated than worried. This would be right up their alley, even though he had no idea what the prank was going to be.

“Uhhhhhh, What the hell? What’s happening?” Bubby’s voice was a lot more nervous than it should have been.

“Oh, it’s DARK in here...” Thank you, Captain Obvious. Gordon’s money was currently on Benrey being the culprit, if the complete lack of surprise was anything to go by. If he was more generous, Gordon would cede that Benrey’s deadpan delivery could have also been a cover up for surprise, but he just wanted to _get out_ and _not_ blow a vessel with how much the guard stressed him out.

“Has anyone seen Mr. Freeman?” Wait, where was Dr. Coomer if-

Gunshot.

The bullet didn’t hit him.

But something warm and liquid did.

“SHIT-” Was all he was able to yell out before something _hard_ slammed against the back of his head and knocked him face first to the ground. As soon as he down, whatever attacked him continued hitting him. He tried to curl up as if that would protect him from the onslaught of punches and kicks and who knows what else was hitting him.

“What are you doing!? We just wanna go home!”

“Let go of me you damn boot boys!”

“Help me, Gordon!”

The Science Team’s voices barely cut through the haze in his mind, and he tried so hard to hold onto that. If they were having this much trouble, he had to get back up and take the lead…

There was another gunshot, and the sound made his head scream in pain. It took him way too long to figure out why he wasn’t feeling the agony of being shot. He jolted up and screamed, “GUYS?” Before something else connected with his head, and he blacked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The brain rot is real and I'm not sorry. As a note, if Gordon doesn't feel quite right for HLVRAI, it's because the Gordon I'm writing for my Half-Life fic is bleeding through and refusing to stay quiet.
> 
> Also, for this, the arm cutting did not happen since the entire point was to keep it a little closer to HL canon, and with five people to keep up with, my reasoning is that they didn't have the time or manpower for it. 
> 
> Some lines lifted directly from the streams to help ease into the diverging point.
> 
> Updates are entirely dependent on my motivation, but I'm planning on this to be relatively short, so here's hoping.


	2. Waking up

Gordon could feel himself being dragged along the floor as his consciousness briefly returned. Fuck, _everything_ hurt. His head felt full of cotton, but that was an improvement to the agony from earlier.

Words from the soldiers dragging him filtered through the ringing in his ears. “Where are we taking this Freeman guy?”  
  
As if being asked about the weather, the other soldier responded, “Topside for questioning.”  
  
“What the hell for? I don’t know why we had to keep those other two alive, but we got him. Let’s kill him now!”

“Uhh, and if they find the body?”

Laughter managed to send a knife of cold fear into his chest as they said, “Body? What body? Covered with his buddy’s blood, good luck figuring out who he is.”

All the words should have meant more to him, but his vision was already blacking back out.

* * *

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap. Tap.

Taptap.

Taptaptap.

_Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap._

The first thing he noticed as he slowly woke up was that something was tapping his forehead very insistently. He tried to wave it away, but the feeling persisted despite his hand meeting no resistance. It wouldn’t let him rest though, and soon the rest of him was waking up properly.

 _Pain._ Every inch of his body was sore and aching, and as if summoned by his wakefulness, every pain sensor was going off.

Maybe he was being a bit dramatic, but it sure felt like it.

“Ugghhhh,” his long drawn out groan was accompanied by grunts of pain as he tried to sit up. “Shit, what happened?” He wasn’t really expecting a response to the question as he could tell that there was no one around-

There was no one around.

There were crates and barrels around him, but there wasn’t a sign of another human. Or any other living entity.

He pushed himself to stand, and he was grateful for the intact boxes around him given that every movement made him want to curl back up and whine in pain. As he grabbed the next highest crate to steady himself, he saw a lot of blood covering his arm and hand.

He looked down at the chest piece of the armor, where blood had smeared, dried, and flaked. He thought he might have been desensitized by that point, but the sight brought back the memory of the gunshots in the dark room.

And everything came rushing in at once.

He turned his head quickly, and hissed in pain. “Fuck the military,” he grumbled. In a louder voice he called out, “Coomer? Tommy? Bubby?” He paused before throwing in, “Benrey?”

He didn’t hear any answers, but he did hear a machine whirring to life, and it suddenly hit him to notice where he was. Between two metal walls that were slowly approaching each other.

“A _fucking_ trash compactor? _SHIT!_ ” He scrambled up the boxes as his body screamed in agony. But Coomer wasn’t around to break the machine this time, and being turned into human and HEV suit paste was not on his agenda.

He could hear wood splinter and break as the walls caught on the crates, and the pile he was climbing shifted enough to make him faceplant into the current box he was climbing up. Thankfully, other than another burst of pain across his nose, he was relatively unhurt.

The top box was almost flush against the concrete wall, and he scrambled across it in record time to vault out of harm’s way and into the small crawlspace. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but the hasty climb felt like it had taken hours.

Uncaring about the contents caught in between, the walls decimated the pile and leaving only a bunch of broken wood and crushed metal to be tossed out.

Deciding here would be as good a place as any, Gordon hugged the ground as he tried to control his breathing. Sure, it wasn’t comfortable, but the firm ground and sheltered spot felt safer than anything else. Getting away from there would be a problem for future Gordon who wasn’t on the verge of panicking.

Once he had talked himself down a little, he took stock of his situation.

One, he had no weapons. Two, he was alone. Three, moving was a giant chore. Four, someone had gotten shot in that ambush and bled all over him. Five, the soldiers had said something about keeping two of the others alive.

He really didn’t want to think about which ones the soldiers would have deemed worthy to keep around since the military had decided to kill the rest of the facility’s workers. Resolve gripped him, and he struggled to a crouching position. He had to find them before those bastards changed their minds and disposed of them. Coomer, Bubby, and Benrey were made of tougher stuff than most humans, and might be able to survive anything the military threw at them, but Tommy was like him. Just a regular human, but without an HEV suit.

…

_This better not be Tommy’s blood._

* * *

After finding a way out of the garbage compactor, Gordon was able to stagger through a natural tunnel and the blinding sun greeted him. The shock to his eyes was unappreciated and sent splitting pains through his skull.

Hands pulled up to cover his eyes as he tried to readjust. “Fuck light...” He grumbled under his breath.

Any future complaints were halted when he heard the familiar sounds of a headcrab scuttling towards him. Eyes snapping open, the pain was temporarily forgotten as he watched the thing leap towards him with a cry.

It was then he realized how fucked he was.

Jumping out the way, he pushed himself into a stumbling run as he gunned for the building. He couldn’t see a door, but there was a ladder that would get him out of danger. The screams of the headcrab as it kept jumping towards him followed him until he was halfway up the ladder.

Once he was at the top of the tower thing, he saw that it was full of water. There was a valve near the bottom and what appeared to be a sealed tunnel. Or that’s what he thought it was with his brain still fuzzy and the awkward angle making it difficult to tell.

“Fucking water, thought we were done with this shit...”

If asked later how he managed the swim, he would not be able to give a clear answer. His aching head and body made the entire endeavor difficult, but soon, the tower was drained, and he crawled into the tunnel.

Once he made it to the exit, he was struck by two things. One, _why was that vat glowing green? Did they really toss their radioactive waste here?_ Two, he could see Tommy.

“Tommy!”

Tommy’s labcoat had a noticeable splatter that nearly made his heart stop, but when Tommy looked up at him and shouted, “Mr. Freeman!” Gordon’s relief was palpable. _Tommy was alive. “_ Are-Are you okay? It sounded really- They just kept hitting you after you were down!”

He started to scramble out of the tunnel to meet Tommy on solid ground. “Yeah I’m fine-” He stopped as he hissed after banging his still aching head against the top of the tunnel. “… Nevermind, I’ve been better.”

“Do you need help? Getting down?”

The concern in Tommy’s voice was noticeable even through the current haze in his mind. “I- I might. Everything hurts...” He wriggled forward as much as he could without just falling onto the concrete below before noticing just how long that fall was. “On second thought, I might crush you if I fall that far, hang on...”

The suit hampered his already limited flexibility, but after pulling his legs forward, he was able to jump down and sort of land on his feet. Immediately, his knees buckled and he collapsed like a stack of soup cans in a grocery store frequented by rowdy children.

His cry of pain brought Tommy rushing over, and it took Gordon a minute to process what he was saying. Something about soda? Beyblades? Oh medkit, yeah that might be useful…

He wasn’t sure when he started leaning against Tommy, but that was much better than making out with concrete. A hand started snapping in front of his face, which jerked him back to reality. “Hey, uh, sleeping with a concussion- It’s bad.”

Gordon groaned and childishly whined, “But I’m tired...” He was an adult, but for fuck’s sake, everything hurt and he just wanted to stop moving for a few minutes.

“We can rest for a little while, but it’s not safe here.” Tommy’s voice was very patient, and Gordon decided he would take the compromise.

Tommy then joined Gordon on the floor while retaining his position of being the thing keeping Gordon’s torso upright. It hit him that maybe he should start asking the questions that were jumping to the front of his mind now that he had a minute. “How did you get away?”

He could feel Tommy shift uncomfortably at the question before he finally admitted, “I-I don’t know. I felt a gun- someone pressed a gun against me, and then I was here.”

“Huh? How? What?” That did not make any sense. “You just. Teleported here?”

“I guess? I don’t know. I didn’t start here, I was in a different room. I was looking around for everyone.” Tommy did a one armed shrug.

“Any luck?” As absolutely maddening the others had been, he was worried about them. Even Benrey.

Tommy paused before admitting, “No.”

It hurt to think too much about that space in time before he properly woke up, but he had to struggle through. “I think I heard them say something about keeping two and then- And then something about being covered in my ‘buddy’s blood’”  
  
There was a longer pause as if Tommy needed to decide something. “Well, Dr. Coomer and Bubby haven’t been keeping- Have been talking about it. They’re Black Mesa projects, and I guess the military wants them?”

While the admission of the two scientists being science projects was overwhelming in itself, the thought was pushed to the side at the thought of _who_ had their hands on them. “Oh shit. We need- we need to find them. Get them away… Wait, does that mean _Benrey_ ’s blood was all over me? That. That was a lot of blood...”

“… Yeah, they pulled out something _big_ for that shot.”

Even if the security guard had driven him up the wall many times, he didn’t necessarily want him _dead._ He’d seen Benrey survive some pretty wild things, but logic dictated that his luck would run out eventually.

Grief for one lost teammate and fear for the other two finally gave him some energy, and with Tommy’s help, Gordon was standing again. “Hey, you still got your guns, right?”

“Yeah, they all came with me. What about yours?”

He slowly shook his head. “I think they took them all. Even took the crowbar.” The second sentence was grumbled.

“Want to borrow one of mine?”

The offer was tempting, but even now, Gordon’s head didn’t feel right. “… I don’t think I can handle it right now, sometimes things get all blurry, and I don’t want to hit you on accident. Can you take the lead for now?” Tommy nodded before pulling out a gun and going forward with Gordon staggering behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Went through and edited chapter 1 to change how I spelled Benrey's name since it started bothering me whoops.
> 
> So fun fact, I was originally doing this because "Oh it might be fun to write the others getting wrecked by the military ambush" but then I realized that this fundamentally alters some parts of Benrey's characterization and Gordon's feelings towards him so uh, here we go whoops. I did not think this through, wish me luck. And on that note, I'm not intentionally writing this for shipping, so not changing the tags there.
> 
> Edit: 8/8/2020: Found and fixed a stray typo, fixed a redundancy that was bothering me, and messed with formatting in a specific spot.


	3. Residue Processing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, things start teetering a little more into Half-Life horror here, but I'm not sure if it's anything worse than what HLVRAI already showed.

"Yo, where _are_ we?" Gordon asked when they exited the hallway into yet another room full of vats with radioactive green goop. "Never really went to this part of the facility before."

"I think it's called- People call it Residue Processing. Black Mesa handles its own waste disposal since there's so- we use so many dangerous things." Tommy kept the lead as they traveled, but looked back every now and then to make sure Gordon was keeping up.

"Given all the radioactive shit, yeah, I can believe it... Wait, is it safe to be in here?"

"Don't worry, Mr. Freeman, it's all OSHA compliant. As long as we don't go... in..." Tommy trailed off and stopped in the entrance to the next room.

"Tommy? You alright?" When Gordon caught up to him, he saw what the hold up was.

The catwalk that would have taken them directly to the next door had been ripped from the wall and had turned a large portion of the floor into a haphazard mess of jagged metal and wires.

"This-This is _not_ OSHA compliant," Tommy said after they both had a moment to take it in.

Gordon couldn't help but laugh incredulously. "You're not wrong there, buddy.” Even though connecting two thoughts together was like trying to force two magnets with the same charge to meet, even Gordon could tell that the usual ways out of this room were fucked.

Tommy took a few steps forward before backtracking and nearly tripping over Gordon. “S-sorry, I’m trying to see- I’m figuring another way out. Just hold on...” He scanned the room over several times, but Gordon could tell he kept going back to the same thing on the far wall. Gordon tried squinting at the black shape, but he couldn’t figure out what it was other than a black hole in the wall right over one of the vats.

“Mr. Freeman, uh, I think the only way to go is through that pipe-” Tommy pointed, “-The door is- we can’t reach the door, and I think it’s- I think it’s blocked, anyway.”

“Pipe? The one that basically feeds into these dumps? Are you- That’s the only way?” Gordon couldn’t help but ask. The only way to get to it would involve some very creative uses of the vats that were definitely not covered in any life insurance policies he had.

“Yeah. I’ll help you across, okay?” Tommy promised while holding out a hand.

Gordon seriously thought through his options, but as far as he could tell, they were well and truly stuck. He would have to trust Tommy’s instincts.

He took the offered hand. “Okay, man. Show me how to get through.”

The grace with which Tommy was able to guide Gordon over the vats was surprising given how Gordon’s sense of equilibrium was being thrown by the HEV suit. Tommy first lead him to the edges of the vat, and he could see that there was _barely_ enough room for him to creep along.

They managed to get to the far side of the first vat with few issues before Gordon had to ask, “Uh, how are we getting to the _next_ one. It’s further away than I thought.”

The pause before Tommy responded was longer than Gordon had hoped. “We’re gonna have to jump. If you aim for the middle part, that’ll give you more room.”

“ _Jump?!_ There’s no way I can make that! Not like this-” His head chose that moment to start swimming, and he was pretty sure the only reason he didn’t tip over was thanks to Tommy’s now iron grip on his arm.

“You can do it, just. Just aim like a cat trying to pounce.”

That comparison immediately brought to mind several cat videos he had seen. “… I’m not going to do that weird butt wiggle cats do.”

Tommy laughed. “Th-that’s fine.” After waiting for a few more seconds, he asked, “I’m going to let go, okay? I need- We have to jump separately.”

After nodding, Gordon felt the hold loosen and then completely vanish. Tommy then jumped onto whatever mechanical thing was in the middle of the next vat, and he turned to beckon Gordon forward.

He wouldn’t admit it, but Gordon’s fear began building the very second Tommy had let go of him, and the gap between where he was and his goal felt like it had gotten bigger when Tommy had crossed it. But he knew that if he stayed here, he would lose his balance again, and falling into a vat of radioactive junk or landing headfirst onto concrete were both unappealing options.

He jumped.

He managed to land on the target, but he felt his weight shift backwards when his heels couldn’t find solid ground. Panicking, he flailed his arms in a futile attempt to swing himself forward, but gravity was winning and would pull him straight into the radioactive waste.

Time stopped along with his heart when his terror filled gaze met with Tommy’s.

In a flash, Tommy was reaching over and _yanking_ him upright, and then he pulled Gordon close to him in a near hug. “Y-you okay, Mr. Freeman?”

Gordon needed a few seconds to regain his composure and nearly collapsed into Tommy. Once he could, he stammered out, “Yeah, thanks man, you saved me.”

Once Gordon felt like he could breathe again, Tommy all but pulled Gordon over to the pipe and helped him get in. Gordon wasn’t entirely comfortable going first, but he would have had to pull himself in otherwise, and that wasn’t an option.

The next few rooms were similarly wrecked and needing creative solutions to get through, but between Tommy keeping an eye on him and the HEV suit, he was relatively unscathed.

When they finally dropped into an area full of water, Gordon enjoyed being away from ominous glowing waste, but then remembered where they were and that the water was _definitely_ not clean.

Thanks to the doors being jammed, Tommy jumped in to see if there was another way forward. He was only gone for a few seconds, but it was enough time for Gordon to feel the oppressive loneliness of his situation creep up.

Without Tommy, he was dead meat.

As if summoned, Tommy resurfaced and called out, “There’s-You’re-We’re gonna have to swim under something that’s like a Beyblade but big.”

The mental image that inspired wasn’t very helpful, but it made a lot more sense when he jumped in. He could feel the water gently tugging on him through the suit, and what little he could see when he ducked under told him what he needed to know. They had to time how they went through so that they wouldn’t get crushed.

Tommy waved him forward, and Gordon swam forward and let the current carry him through. Thankfully the water kind of guided him right to a divot in the wheel-like crusher, and he immediately gunned for the first place he could surface for air.

And immediately regretted it.

Tommy popped up right beside him, and even he couldn’t keep off the look of horror that flashed across his face.

Savage screams filled the air as a bunch of scientists who looked like Bubby snapped their heads around at the intruders. Many of them were on the ground, but the army crawl the nearest one did showed that they were not hindered by their position. The movement was unnatural and jerky despite its speed, and it made everything inside Gordon freak out at how _wrong_ it was.

He felt Tommy climb out of the water with alarming speed, but before he could join him, a swarm of Bubby look-a-likes had already flocked around the water entrance. Their hands all reached towards him in a feral frenzy, and with nowhere else to go, he dropped back into the water.

Even underwater, he could hear gunshots and explosions as Tommy fought whatever those were, and while Gordon felt guilty over his cowardice, he had no idea what he could do. He didn’t have any weapons on him, and even if he did, those things moved really quickly.

His lungs, however, would not let him hide here until it was over, and when his head broke the surface, far too many hands were ready to yank him out. Despite looking like the same frail old man, the creatures had no trouble pulling him and his waterlogged HEV suit out of the water.

Given what he had seen Bubby do, he probably shouldn’t have been surprised, but his thoughts were a bit preoccupied. Currently trying to swat off anything that got close to his head, he screamed, “Tommy! They’ve got me pinned!”

Even through the suit, he could feel failed attempts at clawing and biting, and there was at least one pinning his legs down. Another one had scrambled on top of his torso and originally had tried clawing his chest piece off. Then, as if it finally noticed the weakness, it lunged for his face with teeth that looked far too sharp for a human.

“SHIT!”

Out of reflex, Gordon shut his eyes and swung his free arm at the assailant, and while the blow did not remove the problem, it did at least knock the attack off course. He grabbed at the creature’s head, and he was never more grateful for the HEV suit gloves than he was right then. The teeth couldn’t pierce the thick material, and his hand provided a nice distraction.

A spray of red marked the end of that squabble when Tommy got a clear shot, and Gordon couldn’t help flinching. _Not right now not right now._

Tommy had made his way back over to Gordon and systematically took out the ones still holding him down after chucking a grenade back towards the crowd still trying to get through the hallway on the far side.

Once his limbs were free, Gordon brought his hands to his ears as if that would make the sounds stop. It took more than a few repeats of his name before he could finally look up at Tommy and hear what he was saying.

“We shouldn’t- we can rest a little further ahead. Here’s… not a good spot.” Tommy’s encouraging tone was free from the terror he had expected, and that prompted him to look around.

The room was full of corpses. That all looked like Bubby. Yeah, that wasn’t ominous or anxiety inducing in any way, shape, or form with the extra viscera hanging around. “What the _fuck_ was that?” His voice cracked. “Are they tied to Bubby? Fuck, was one of them _Bubby?”_ He started to ramble as he tried to piece together what the hell just happened. His breathing sped up. “Oh god, we’re fucked. We are so fucked.”

Despite his earlier insistence, Tommy decided to sit down next to Gordon and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Breathe, Mr. Freeman,” he gently instructed. “Uh, Yes. And no? He mentioned the prototypes, right? When we found a dead one?”

The reminder made him take a deep breath before he continued. “… Prototypes. Right.” He vaguely remembered the mention when they had found one dead scientist that bore a striking resemblence to Bubby before. He hadn’t had time to parse out the implications then, but after seeing them… “What the hell happened to them? Did they just-”

“I don’t- I don’t know. I wasn’t assigned to that project. Mr. Bubby didn’t really want to talk about it either...” Tommy trailed off.

Though that did raise another question. “Yeah I bet… Wait, why the hell were they _here?”_

“Well, maybe it was-Maybe it was the military? Get rid of all the failed ones and save bullets?”

Given how they had chosen to dispose of him, that sounded like a very plausible explanation.

Now that Gordon wasn’t on the verge of panicking again, Tommy helped pull him back up to his feet. “You-You sure you don’t want a weapon?”

While the reasons he refused earlier were still true, he _really_ did not want a repeat of what just happened. “… Maybe I can borrow the crowbar for now?”

“That’s-That’s fine.” Tommy handed it to him, and Gordon gripped it in both hands like it was a lifeline.

Which it probably was in this case.

The rest of the journey through Residue Processing passed in a blur of conveyor belts, fire, more water, and _even more_ radioactive waste. All throughout, he and Tommy would talk about… stuff. Sometimes related to what was going on, but often veering into other topics.

If Gordon was to be pressed later, the exact details of what was said had been lost in his hazy mind, but he got the impression the chatter was more for easing nerves and keeping him awake than anything else.

The only good thing he could recall about their trip was that there was a shocking lack of enemies other than the mob of Bubby prototypes.

Well. _Living_ enemies. They found plenty of dead aliens. Most of them looked like they had literally been torn to pieces. Or in the case of that one headcrab, half-eaten.

They finally found a door they had enough clearance to enter, and the only way out was yet another ladder. Tommy climbed up first, but the way was blocked with a vent cover.

"Mr. Freeman, I need- Can you pass me the crowbar?" He whispered down the ladder. 

Thankfully, Gordon had been able to hold onto it while climbing, so he shifted his weight so that he could free a hand to pass the crowbar upwards. "Yeah, here you go."

There was no easy way to open this thing without causing a lot of noise, but it still surprised Gordon when a loud _CLANG_ filled the air. As soon as the way was open, they hastily climbed up and took in the scene before them.

They were lucky that all the peeper puppies in the room had already been savaged by something else. One could make an educated guess as to what thanks to several corpses that were caught in the electrical fence and filling the air with the smell of burnt flesh.

Gordon nearly retched, which caused Tommy tug Gordon away and help him back down the ladder. Once they were a distance away, Tommy instructed, “Stay-stay here, Mr. Freeman. I’ll be right back.”

He waited until Gordon finally nodded his head in understanding before leaving him with the crowbar. Even with space, Gordon could still hear the electricity popping through the fence, and it took a lot of resolve to not just curl up on the floor and cry. The world felt like it was ending, everything hurt, and he didn’t know where the rest of his friends were.

Friends. Yeah, by now he probably could call them that. Going through hell together generally meant something. Even if he felt like he was going to die from a heart attack half of the time.

He didn’t have long to muse on that before Tommy returned and beckoned him back up the ladder again. The electricity that had been visibly surging through the fence was gone, and the gate was already opened.

“How’d you get over there?”

“Extra carefully.”

“… I don’t know what I expected.”

The door that had been blocked by the fence was unassuming, and it did not indicate what they were going to next. Given the crates that looked like they once held the peeper puppies, they _had_ to be close to the Biology section…

On the other side of the door was a hallway straight from a horror movie with electrical wires hanging loose from the cieling and sparking and even a flashlight on the ground that occasionally flickered. As they went in, Gordon finally shifted the crowbar into a position where he could actually use it instead of holding it like a comfort toy.

There was a groaning sound from around the corner, and Tommy threw an arm out to keep Gordon from going around him. The other hand kept his gun pointed towards the potential threat’s entrance.

Gordon’s breath caught in his throat as they waited for the monster to show itself, and if his heartbeat wasn’t giving them away, then his fidgeting with the crowbar probably was. The creaks in his gloves sounded so fucking loud, but he wanted to be ready if the thing picked up speed.

A humanoid shape stumbled around the corner with a hand clinging to the wall. At a glance, all Gordon could see was that it was wearing a hospital gown, and the other hand was clutching its middle.

Tommy didn’t pause to look and immediately fired a warning shot.

“Don’t shoot at me, asshole!” A cranky and extremely drunk voice slurred.

Wait a minute.

“ _Bubby?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title card: QUESTIONABLE ETHICS
> 
> Turns out it wasn't just Benrey and Gordon I had to tweak too, whoops. Despite that though, I really loved Tommy guiding Gordon through the facility for a while, and I really didn't want to cut that out completely.
> 
> Also, some of the environments are going to be influenced by Black Mesa since I replayed that recently, and it's easier for me to research right now.
> 
> Edit 8/23/2020: Replayed this part of Black Mesa and watched the Half Life iteration and realized I screwed up how you entered the room with the electric fence, so that should be fixed now.


	4. Bubby's No Good, Terrible, Very Bad Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter still isn't really graphic imo, but there are mentions of injuries and implied torture. Also, a person I know is reading this, so I'm specifically calling out a warning for them: When you see an all caps THUNK, there's going to be a brief description of a messed up head soon afterwards.

“ _Bubby?”_

The figure stopped and squinted. “Gordon? Tommy?” He hunched over and tightened his grip on his torso as if the effort pained him, but the voice was unmistakable. “Took you long enough to find me,” he grumbled out slowly before leaning heavily against the wall.

It _was_ Bubby. Missing his glasses and shoes and wearing a hospital gown, but he was alive, and in that moment Gordon would take whatever good news he could get. However, Bubby’s condition was concerning enough that both Tommy and Gordon quickly rushed over to him, their earlier wariness thrown away.

Gordon put a hand on Bubby’s shoulder and realized that he was also soaking wet. “Dude, you okay?”

“They took my damn pants, Gordon, do you _think_ I’m okay?” Bubby snapped, but otherwise did not fight the contact.

“Mr. Freeman, he’s- There’s blood at his feet!” Tommy waved his free hand downwards.

Gordon looked down, and sure enough, there was a red spot left from where Bubby’s foot had shifted. “Holy shit, man. Why don’t you sit down?”

“We have to get away! There’s _something_ in there killing the soldiers,” Bubby said in a surprisingly clear voice as he shook his head violently enough to make Gordon let go. Then regretting the motion as he hissed in pain. “They deserve it, but I’m not risking my life to find out what.” He struggled forward a step, and Gordon could see that Bubby left a bloody footprint.

“But what about Coomer? Is he in there too?”

That stopped Bubby’s efforts, and he looked down. “I don’t know. They hit me over the head, and then injected me with something. When I woke up, I was in my _damn_ tube again and didn’t even have my clothes.”

The way Bubby talked about his tube made Gordon feel uneasy. Given that Bubby was literally a test tube human, the fact that it existed wasn’t surprising, but Bubby’s animosity about it did not sit well with him.

However, it did raise an immediate question. “Wait, how did you get out?”

“S- _Something_ came in and slammed against the glass when those idiot boot boys left to deal with aliens.” The reminder seemed to spur Bubby into taking another step

“Something?”

“If I actually knew what the fuck it was, I would have specified, dumbass.”

Even though he wasn’t sure Bubby could actually see it, Gordon raised his hands in a surrender motion. “Sorry, had to ask.”

Bubby waved in a dismissive gesture as he tried to keep hobbling forward. “Whatever, we need to get going before it comes back.”

Tommy refused to budge even as Bubby bumped into him. “We just- We came from that way. We can’t leave from there.”

“Yeah, it’s the trash place,” Gordon confirmed.

“R-residue Processing.”

“What he said. Unless you want to go through garbage disposal, there’s nothing that way.” He saw Tommy give him a worried look, but he shook his head to keep them from going off topic.

That apparently gave Bubby pause. “… Well shit, there went my plan.”

"You said that, uh, _thing_ slammed against the tube. How do you know that it's killing the soldiers?"

"I heard screaming and shooting when it went the same way they did. And considering the shooting stopped, and no one came back, I could make a guess." Gordon didn’t have to see Bubby’s face to know that he had rolled his eyes.

“It didn’t- but it didn’t stop to attack you? Before leaving?” Tommy asked.

“No, it cracked the glass before giving up. The tube didn’t break until a few minutes later.”

Honestly, Gordon did _not_ want to find out what the hell was in there, but he and Tommy had checked every route possible on their way through Residue Processing, and if the door wasn’t busted, there was always some sort of hazard blocking it.

Navigating their way back wouldn’t be easy either. It was already treacherous with just Gordon being a hobbled mess; doing it with Bubby incapacitated too would be impossible.

Tommy broke the quiet that had settled across them. “We just- We have to keep moving. Are you- Do you need help, Dr. Bubby?”

Bubby’s face scrunched up in distaste, but after a painfully long minute, he finally said, “Can’t see a damn thing. Sure.”

“Hey wait, do you want some help with-” Gordon gestured towards the blood staining the ground, “-That first?”

Somehow managing to look at Gordon with a gaze that screamed, ‘Are you stupid,’ he asked, “With what?”

“You obviously stepped on something, and you’re bleeding! It’s probably glass given the tube thing!” Gordon’s voice notably went up in pitch as he explained.

“How would you- You’d need tweezers or something, Mr. Freeman. We can’t do that here.” Tommy wasn’t happy with that, but he was right.

“There’s a medkit ahead if I remember right. I think. I wouldn’t swear to it now,” Bubby rambled. Then as if catching himself, he snapped, “Now are you going to help me or not?”

“Alright, alright, fine. Here we go. I uh, don’t think I can carry you like this and Tommy needs to go first.” Gordon reached an arm under the one that Bubby wasn’t pressing against a wall and slowly maneuvered the scrawnier scientist to lean against him so that the injured foot wouldn’t bear much weight. He had never been more glad to be in the HEV suit if only so he didn’t get soaked due to being in contact with Bubby’s drenched form.

It also meant he could _feel_ Bubby shivering.

He was distracted from asking about it by Bubby’s next question. “What do you mean, ‘like this?’”

Deciding they needed to get a move on, Gordon started walking as he explained. “Well, getting beaten to hell kinda makes my head and body scream at me, and I don’t want to drop you if that kicks in at a bad time. At least this way, you can let go before it becomes a problem.”

Tommy took the lead and opened the door leading to the tube room, and it was _a mess._ The giant tube that dominated the room had been shattered, and glass and some weird fluid covered the floor in front of it. Gordon didn’t have to shift to see the sneer planted on Bubby’s face and made the executive decision just pass through.

Until Bubby stopped them at the exit and went, “Wait, I think they left my glasses in the observation room. Let’s go get them.”

“I-I’ll get them, Dr. Bubby, just wait here,” Tommy volunteered. He passed by them quickly, and they could hear the crunch of glass when he got further in. The sound of an automatic door opening and closing told them that he was able to enter without a hitch.

For once, Gordon didn’t really have much to say as they waited. Bubby was not in the mood to humor any comments, and Gordon felt bad enough for the guy that he didn’t want to aggravate him on accident. Add onto the fact that they didn’t want to attract attention while they were vulnerable, and it made for a perfect cocktail of reasons to keep quiet.

It meant that they could hear something mechanical inside the tube moving.

Bubby’s head snapped up at the sound, and he started backing up. “Oh my god!” He couldn’t go far with Gordon’s arm keeping him in place, and he started to struggle against him.

“Woah dude, what’s-”

“We gotta get moving! Before it-”

_CRACK_

The sound was accompanied by a blinding flash of light and the smell of ozone.

Bubby’s knees gave out on him, and Gordon couldn’t keep his balance while suddenly trying to support all of their weight. They both dropped to the floor, but Gordon was able to keep himself from falling on top of Bubby. It didn’t mean he was any less winded, however. After gasping for a few breaths and reorienting himself, he turned his head to see how Bubby was.

Bubby was curled into a fetal position, and his shivering had turned into full body shaking.

“SHIT! Bubby? Bubby, talk to me!” Terrified that Bubby had been injured even more, Gordon tried to grab his shoulder.

Bubby tensed at the contact, and suddenly, Gordon’s hand felt intensely _hot_. He let go and tried to put out the sudden fire that tried to cover his glove.

It’s a good thing the HEV suit was fireproof, so that the flames had nothing to fuel them and died out. The sudden fire still freaked him out, even if the hazard training had already told him about the fire resistance.

“Mr. Freeman! Dr. Bubby! Are-are you okay? I didn’t- I didn’t mean to hit that button! I tripped and fell on it...” He didn’t notice Tommy rejoining them until Tommy spoke up.

“I-I’m fine, Tommy,” Gordon quickly reassured. “Bubby though… I dunno man, he just fell and won’t respond to me. I think he just set my hand on fire when I touched him?”

Gordon didn’t miss the way that Tommy’s eyes first glanced towards the exit hallway first before he knelt down beside them. Right, they still had to be careful…

“Dr. Bubby? It’s- It’s just Tommy and Mr. Freeman. Y-your friends?” Tommy spoke in a soothing tone. “Just take deep breaths, okay? Like this.” His breathing slowed down to a calming rhythm that Gordon recognized from when someone had to help him recover from panic attacks in college.

Bubby didn’t look up at them, but the thin hospital gown made it easy to see that hewas trying to follow the instructions Tommy had given.

While Tommy continued to calm Bubby down, Gordon stood himself back up. He made sure his movements were purposeful and slow, not only for his own benefit, but to make sure he didn’t set Bubby off again.

Once he was upright, he appointed himself as guard and held his crowbar at the ready. The knowledge that he was a poor substitute for Tommy’s clear head and quick instincts in this state weighed heavily on him, but it was the best he could do in this situation. Crowding Bubby wouldn’t make things go any faster, and Tommy knew what he was doing.

He couldn’t help but be grateful for Tommy. He definitely owed the guy all the favors in the world. He could only hope that they would get out so that those favors could be cashed in.

As for Bubby… The fact that the tube _came_ with an electrocuting function was horrifying in its implications, and Bubby’s reaction to that feature being turned on spoke volumes. God, he knew Black Mesa had some shady stuff going on, but this was sickening. Given that Bubby seemed to be in pain from more than a head wound and an injured foot, he wouldn’t be surprised if the electricity had been used on Bubby before the soldiers had been distracted.

 _That_ thought burned white hot, and while he would be useless in a fight at the moment, he almost wished a soldier would appear at the end of the hallway. He gripped his crowbar tightly; it would be satisfying to bring it down on one of those damn military goons.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there before Tommy finally called his attention back to them. “Mr. Freeman! He’s… We can go now. Just help him walk, okay?” Tommy had already pulled Bubby to a standing position and let him lean against him, and Gordon noticed there was a pair of glasses sitting on Bubby’s face. _Oh good, Tommy found them._ The endeavor leading into that accident hadn’t been for nothing.

Gordon nodded and switched places with Tommy with relative ease. It was concerning, to say the least, that Bubby wasn’t more vocal, but given everything that just happened, he didn’t want to try forcing a conversation.

God, Bubby looked so _tired_. He wished they could properly stop and rest, for all of their sakes, but stopping now was out of the question.

The hallway was eerily quiet, as was the next room. The cage full of dead headcrabs did nothing to alleviate the tension, but as soon as they passed by it, Bubby spoke up. “There should be a medkit in here. There’s one in most of the specimen rooms.”

The observation room in here held what they were looking for, and while Tommy took out the sparse medical supplies, Gordon did his best to help Bubby to the floor.

Until Bubby protested, “I’m not decrepit yet. I can get down!”

Not wanting another fire incident, Gordon backed off, even as Bubby made a loud THUMP when he landed on the floor. “I’m fine!”

At least some of Bubby’s figurative fire was returning.

There wasn’t a lot of room, but Gordon and Tommy ducked below the window and joined Bubby onto the floor. The automatic door was switched to stay off while they were in there, but they didn’t want to attract any more attention than necessary.

Which they knew they were probably about to attract in spades.

Thankfully, they had tweezers, a little rubbing alcohol, and some gauze to work with, so Gordon elected to take care of the rest while Tommy stayed on guard.

“Alright, man, this is probably gonna hurt, okay? Please don’t set me on fire for this...”

“Don’t dick around then and get on with it.”

Pulling glass out of skin was never fun, but he had to say that he never had to deal with a patient who tried to kick him in the face after one shard. Not that he could entirely blame Bubby, but _still._ The rest of the procedure went smoothly if only because Tommy let Bubby hold his free hand. If Tommy had to shake his hand so that blood would return to it afterwards, he didn’t complain.

Once the wound was bandaged, Bubby immediately tried to stand up and hissed in pain once he put weight on the injured foot.

“You-”

“It’s better than it was. Come on, let’s go.” Bubby beckoned for them to follow while he fiddled with the door controls. Once it was open, he hobbled forward with purpose.

At least now it seemed like he could walk without assistance. Even if he clearly favored one leg.

The next hallway had a window into an office that seemed empty, so they didn’t pay much attention to it as they entered. It was more immediately concerning that there was a dead scientist riddled with bullets in the far corner. As they got closer to the corpse, Gordon couldn’t help but look it over in case it somehow got back up without a headcrab latched on.

Bubby stopped and put a hand on his chin as if deep in thought. “Wait, I-”

THUNK.

“ _Shit!”_

“ _AAAAAAAAAA!”_ Bubby managed to break into a run and slid under the stuck decontamination door at the far end of the hallway.

Tommy released several rounds into the bullet proof glass before stopping himself.

On the other side of the window was a headcrab zombie dully beating its head against the glass. Whoever it was had been a security guard based on the blue shirt and bullet proof vest. The head of the unfortunate soul was already decayed to the point where Gordon could see a jawbone dangling listlessly.

While horrifying in its own right, the sight made Gordon’s head spin, and he had to look away to make it stop.

“Mr. Freeman?”

After taking a few seconds to close his eyes and breathe, he forced himself to look at Tommy. “I’m good. Let’s go.”

Thankfully, Bubby had only gone through the other side of the decontamination room and was waiting for them. Once they had grouped back up, he said, “There’s an employee locker room nearby, and I want to get some damn clothes. Running around in my underwear is getting old.”

“Yeah, sure.” While it would be another hold up on time, Bubby was _still_ shivering if they stood around for too long, and he definitely needed some shoes.

“… You’re going to need to break into the lockers. That’s what I need you for.”

“Glad to know I’m just here to be your errand boy.” The sarcasm wasn’t even remotely subtle.

“You got that right.”

Even if things were still… Off, the familiar banter was taking the edge off Gordon’s nerves.

After a few more hallways, the only way forward was conveniently through the men’s locker room and bathroom. The women’s room was blocked off, and even if they wanted to go in, there was a number lock preventing entry.

What they could see through the opened door was not promising. Blood and bullet holes littered the walls, and there were several corpses lying around. The only good news about the sight was that the blood didn’t look fresh.

Trying to find a different bright side, Gordon said, “Well, looks like you lucked out, Bubby, at least we can get in.” Happy to be getting somewhere, he shoved the crowbar into the first locker he could see and prepared to open it. Until Bubby stopped him.

“Not that one.”

Gordon couldn’t figure out what Bubby’s deal was and asked, “Why not?”

“How do you know they’ll have something that fits me?” He gestured at his body. Bubby _was_ on the taller side and lanky...

“I dunno? I thought we’d figure that out once we saw what was in there?”

“Dumbass. Let’s be smart about this. Open this one instead.” Bubby patted the locker he was standing next to.

The smug tone made Gordon roll his eyes, but he complied. The crowbar went in with little resistance, but the door needed a fair amount of force before the lock snapped. Inside the locker was a typical scientist uniform along with some other personal items. Almost immediately, Bubby grabbed the clothing and looked at the sizes.

“I was right! See?” He proudly showed off that the pants were the perfect length.

“… Wait how did you guess that _that_ locker would have the right size?”

“Some of my prototypes were assigned to work here, and I recognized the name.” The smugness faded a little, but before any further questions could be asked, Bubby turned away and shooed them. “Let me change, and I’ll be right out.” The bathroom stalls were riddled with bullet holes and offered little privacy, but they let him have his moment and pointedly kept their backs to him.

Noticing just how tense Tommy was, Gordon asked, “How much do you know about this section, Tommy?” Gordon asked. Part of this was because he was genuinely curious, but the other part was due to wanting to help with Tommy’s nerves.

“Uh. This is the Biodome. Part of it is- Studies Xenobiology. The other part is-” he waved towards where Bubby had gone. “They had- They partnered with Cybernetics though. For a while.”

 _I wonder if that’s when Coomer got his… everything._ Gordon had lost track of how many enhancements Coomer had offhandedly mentioned by this point.

Before he could ask, Bubby yelled out, “Bubby’s back, bitches!”

If the stall door could have opened the other way, Gordon did not doubt that Bubby would have slammed it open.

As he took in Bubby’s appearance, he noticed that Bubby was also wearing the infamous Black Mesa Tie. “… You put the tie on too? Isn’t that a bit much?”

“It’s company protocol. Of course I did.” As if in spite, which it probably was, Bubby adjusted it to fit more snugly.

Gordon’s brain short-circuited. “But. We’re.”

“He’s right, Mr. Freeman,” Tommy agreed.

Gordon slumped his shoulders and shook his head. “Fine! I guess!” he said while throwing his hands up. “Let’s just get going.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this chapter nearly ended up titled 'Bubby Whump' Because each time I wrote something down for this poor guy, it kept getting worse. Oops?
> 
> Big note: I ended up mashing together Half-Life and Black Mesa for this part because both versions of this area had pieces I wanted to include, and that's going to continue for the rest of this fic.


	5. Friendly Faces

The locker room’s other entrance opened up to a break area for the lab workers on this side of the complex. Immediately to their left, there were vending machines, but before Gordon could fully lift his crowbar to the soda one, Tommy shook his head vehemently. “We-we can do that later.”

“Yeah, when we’re not in danger,” Bubby added on curtly and tried to push Gordon’s shoulder so that he would move.

Utterly shocked that _Tommy_ turned down the opportunity for free soda, Gordon was stunned in place. He had only started the action with the assumption that Tommy and probably Bubby would want to continue things as usual, but hearing them both shoot down the idea threw that out the window.

It made something in his chest twist in concern.

When he could get his feet to move, he could see more of the break area. There was a section with more comfortable chairs parked in front of a TV that now only showed multi-colored bars that usually preceded a service announcement. There was also a shelf with books, but the chairs by that weren’t nearly as comfortable looking.

… He could _almost hear_ Coomer going on his chair spiel. A part of him hoped that he would be able to actually hear it again.

The eating area looked like a tornado had spawned long enough just enough to throw the tables and chairs around before disappearing again. What was more concerning was that there was a pool of something dark as ink in the middle of the room that then turned into a large, smeared trail on the floor leading down the hallway to the offices.

“Well, that’s not terrifying,” Gordon said when they stopped at it. “Hey didn’t you- WAIT, DON’T TOUCH IT!” Bubby had knelt down to poke at the strange substance, but Gordon was quick to yank him away from it by the back of his labcoat.

“What was that for?” Bubby was clearly unhappy at being manhandled and grabbed at Gordon’s hand to make him let go.

With him out of danger, Gordon released his hold on Bubby. “We don’t know what that is! For all we know, it could be poison or something that will make your finger fall off!”

“Hey guys, isn’t there- Didn’t you say that there’s a big monster in here? Killing the military? Maybe this is its blood?” Tommy managed to cut off any further sniping by directing them back to the present problem. “Also, why haven’t we seen any dead soldiers?”

“I didn’t see it killing them. I just assumed it since they never came back.” Bubby readjusted his glasses as he continued looking at the blood-like substance. “… Looks like they did a number on it here, though.”

“It’s not green like the other aliens’ blood we’ve seen...” Whatever the hell it was, it wasn’t something they had dealt with before. While Gordon didn’t care if the soldiers survived or not, he hoped that they had taken care of the creature. It had to have been _massive_ to leave that much blood here, and he was unsure if Tommy was good enough to take out something that big in a few shots.

Any further musing was interrupted by something moving out the corner of his eye, and his head shot up along with the others. Tommy was already pointing his gun down the hallway where Gordon could see something moving. The flickering lights made it difficult to make out exactly what it was, but he could tell it was humanoid and dragging something behind it.

It raised its free arm and waved. “Hello! It’s me! Your friend, Dr. Coomer!” The voice immediately put Gordon and the others at ease. Bubby no longer looked like he was going to bolt, and Tommy pointed his gun down.

As Coomer got closer, he could see that he was dragging a sledgehammer-like contraption straight out of Fallout. After a minute, he shifted his grip and then balanced the unwieldy weapon across his shoulders.

He was also completely ignoring the blood trail and walking in it.

Gordon tried to wave him down before he took another step. “Hey- uh, Hey. Coomer? Hey Coomer? You probably don’t want to walk in that.”

“I’ll be fine! A little alien blood never hurt anyone.” Coomer continued his casual stroll towards them, but he did get out of the trail. Once he was close enough, Gordon couldn’t help but look him over.

Dr. Coomer appeared perfectly fine. There weren’t any notable injuries, and while his clothes looked dirty, that wasn’t exactly new. The only new addition to his ensemble was the souped up sledgehammer.

“God, I’m so glad you’re okay,” Gordon couldn’t help but say as he patted him on the shoulder. “Was getting worried about you.”

“I’m in tip-top shape! Handling a couple of boot boys was no trouble for me.” He also didn’t seem too perturbed by The Incident. Which was fine, Gordon guessed; he wouldn’t say no to a little normalcy. At least the Science Team was mostly back together now.

“Any idea what made this shithole a bigger mess than usual?” Bubby impatiently asked.

“Oh, probably the fight between that alien monster and a group of soldiers, Professor.”

“Doctor.” Predictably, Bubby corrected Coomer, and Gordon contained his groan as he prepared to get the topic back on track of _Alien Monster Fighting the Soldiers._

Until Coomer said, “My apologies, Doctor.” Bubby’s eyebrows drew together, and his eyes narrowed when their usual bit didn’t continue, but Gordon sighed in relief. “Anyway, there were a lot of them running through and throwing explosives, so I decided to hide.”

“What did the _monster_ look like?”

“I didn’t get a good look since I had to hide. Though, I think I saw colors that didn’t exist! All I can tell you was that it was bigger than a human, had claws, and it went that way.” Coomer emphasized his point by pointing towards the exit. Where the trail clearly lead. “Which is also the only way to go if you want to find someone who can let us out of here.”

Gordon tangled a hand in his hair before smoothing it back. “Great, so we still don’t know what it is, and we _have_ to go that way.”

“You got it!”

“… Thanks.” Gordon wasn’t frustrated with him, but it would have been nice to know what they might be walking into.

“Let’s get a move on, gentlemen.” Coomer wasted no time in leading them down the hallway; taking the lead from Tommy as if that was the most natural thing in the world. Gordon nearly called Coomer back to fix the marching order, but then he noticed that Tommy’s hold on his gun had loosened considerably.

Maybe giving Tommy a break would be a good thing.

The floor sloped upwards, and while the angle wasn’t steep, the inky fluid that had smeared itself everywhere made the trip more perilous than it should have been. Even if the possible alien blood was harmless, it still made the floor sticky, and Tommy had had to offer a steadying arm more than once to the two injured parties.

Coomer kept his lead and didn’t look back.

He did, however, stop when the hall took a sharp turn, and he held up a hand for them to stop once they finally caught up with him.

Bubby opened his mouth to snap a question when an unknown voice shouted, “What the actual fuck!?” The heavily filtered voice made everyone freeze in place with bated breath. “What did they _find_ down here?”

A different voice answered, “Dunno and don’t care. Smith says he took care of it, but to keep an eye out while we pick up the goods.”

As the conversation continued, they noticed that the voices were getting closer. Coomer hefted the sledgehammer as he readied a swing, and Gordon began nudging Bubby backwards. Thankfully, the stubborn man took the hint and ducked behind the human with literal body armor.

The casual reference to “goods” probably meant Bubby and Coomer since it appeared that Tommy’s earlier guess about the military wanting any Black Mesa experiments they could get their hands on was correct. It pissed him off. Bubby and Coomer were _people,_ and he didn’t doubt that the military planned on treating them as far less than that.

Maybe it was dumb of Gordon to insist on staying in front of him, but even if Bubby was more durable than most humans, Gordon didn’t want him getting more hurt than he already was.

The pair of soldiers that rounded the corner never stood a chance. One precise shot from Tommy, and the one without a gas mask was down, and the other one’s head was caved in and flattened with one swing from Coomer’s weapon.

Ignoring the blood that had splattered onto him, Coomer quickly knelt down to grab at the assault rifle but tumbled backwards when shouting echoed through the hallway. “There they are! Get them!” The sound of heavy boots running towards them was unmistakable.

As was the sight of a grenade landing right in front of them.

“SHIT, GOTTA MOVE!” Gordon had already started backing up before turning around and bolting down the hallway while pushing Bubby ahead of him. They made it back to the first turn when the explosion went off. Thankfully, they were far enough away to avoid the worst of it, but Gordon could still feel some shrapnel bouncing off the HEV suit even at that distance.

A quick head count told him that Bubby and Coomer had followed, and while Coomer’s presence was a little surprising, the immediate problem was that Tommy was nowhere to be seen.

“TOMMY!?” There wasn’t a white coat on the floor with the now decimated soldier corpses, but that didn’t mean he was safe. In fact, given the fact that Gordon could hear bullets being exchanged, it meant that Tommy was in even more danger. He wasted no time in trying to charge back up the hallway, even as his legs protested all the extra movement. “He must’ve gone ahead!”

Coomer was quick to outpace him even while carrying the sledgehammer. “HYAAH!” The shout was loud enough to make Gordon’s ears ache, and he couldn’t help but slow down as the stout scientist sprinted past.

Bubby wasn’t far behind, but he stopped to pick up the now ownerless assault rifle. The confident smirk was back on his face. “Let’s give them hell!” He shouted before hobbling up as quickly as he could.

Gordon kept up with Bubby and entered what he vaguely recognized as a lobby with skylights. He didn’t get time to look at much else before a bullet ricocheted way too close to him. Bubby was already shooting back, and he could see Tommy ducked down behind a barrier reloading. Coomer’s zealous sprint had taken him to the far side of the lobby already, and given the blood splatter on the walls nearby and on Coomer himself, he had already taken someone out.

No one else saw the camouflaged figure stalking its way behind Tommy’s position.

Gordon charged towards him as he yelled, “Tommy, watch out!” He could see Tommy’s head jerk up and around, but the soldier had already leveled his shotgun to take a shot in point blank range.

Without much thought, Gordon did the only thing he knew he could do. His momentum carried him straight into Tommy, knocking them both over and onto the ground. He could feel the bullets whiz by overhead, and one pinged off the back of the HEV suit.

He heard the soldier suddenly start choking, and when he could make himself focus again, he could see that Tommy _somehow_ managed to keep his grip on his gun and shot the soldier in the throat from his position on the floor.

The soldier collapsed in a miserable pile, leaving his shotgun up for grabs. Gordon scrambled off of Tommy to grab it before thinking to ask, “You okay? And uh, do you want this?”

Tommy’s breathing hadn’t slowed down yet, but he gave a shaky smile. “I’m f-fine. Thanks, Mr. Freeman. And uh, you should take that for now.” With that line, he stood back up and fired a round at the soldier that he had been playing sniper war with.

He just won, judging by the lack of a responding bullet.

Gordon checked the shotgun’s ammo as he kept an eye on the others, and once he was satisfied with it, he slowly got himself up. He knew his body was going to hate him in the morning, but he had to make sure they all got _to see_ that morning.

Bubby had taken cover behind the reception desk while exchanging shots with a pair of soldiers hiding behind some metal crates, and after checking for danger, Gordon ran towards him with Tommy following.

With all three of them ducked behind the desk, Bubby snarled, “They keep hiding before I can blow their brains out!”

“Got any explosives? Maybe we can flush them out?” Gordon suggested as he tried to peek over the desk. A gunshot made him fall back down quickly while clenching the shotgun.

“I’ve- I’ve got a grenade.” Tommy offered before pulling out the referenced weapon.

Bubby reached over Gordon to snatch it out of Tommy’s hand. “Yes, that will work. But I need someone to distract them before I can throw it.”

Again, with barely a thought, Gordon acted on impulse and threw the shotgun he had just acquired into the middle of the room. The thunk and clatter of the tossed firearm drew the attention of the soldiers for just long enough for Bubby to stand up and toss the grenade right behind the boxes they had hidden behind.

The explosion was preceded by a couple of muffled swears, but once the dust settled, silence fell over the lobby. Behind the desk, the three Science Team members kept quiet as they all listened for the heavy footsteps that they had all come to associate with the US military.

After minutes that felt like hours, Tommy slowly stood up and scanned the room. Once he deemed it safe, he gestured for the others to stand, and Gordon was able to finally get a good look at what remained of the lobby.

The room had been taken over as a military outpost, but this one was wrecked even more than usual after one of their fights. There were a lot more bodies that Gordon knew they hadn't put there, and it looked like several of them were missing pieces. There was also the matter of the dark blood splattering random parts of the floor and walls from the creature getting shot and blown up.

 _What the fuck? How was it still moving?_ _And how did that one guy ‘handle it???’_ He could see that the trail lead down the open hallway, and he had to assume that it had chased its prey in that direction.

“Where’s Dr. Coomer?” Tommy’s question was a much more immediate concern, and Gordon quickly looked around as his heart rate picked back up.

“Last I saw, he took out someone by the exit over there,” He finally said. “Shit, did he go ahead?”

“Probably. Pretty sure I saw a soldier take off that way.” Bubby had made his way over to the shotgun that Gordon had carelessly thrown. “Since you tossed it at the first opportunity, I’m guessing you don’t want it.”

“I didn’t-” He caught himself and sighed. “You know what? Fine, you can have it.” Clearly his head was not on straight if his first instinct was to throw the gun and not the crowbar. Bubby seemed pleased to rebuild his arsenal, anyway, so Gordon let the matter go.

“How about I go get Coomer while you guys stock up?” He wasn’t too worried about Coomer, but he didn’t want the guy to get too far ahead. And since he didn’t doubt Coomer’s efficiency, it was _very_ unlikely that there were any survivors.

He also didn’t want to waste the opportunity for them to restock their supplies, and between all the supply crates and dead soldiers, they could easily get back up to their pre-ambush levels.

Tommy’s eyebrows drew together in concern. “Are you- Are you sure, Mr. Freeman?”

“Yeah, I should be fine. You and Bubby just pick everything clean, and we can distribute it once I get back.” The nonchalant wave he did was definitely forced, but they didn’t need to worry. “We heard them say that they ‘took care of the problem’, so whatever was making such a mess is gone, too.” With his crowbar in hand, he crossed the remainder of the lobby and entered the next hallway.

“Don’t stay gone too long!” Bubby’s shout followed him.

As he rounded the first corner, he was met with yet another dead soldier, and he elected to not inspect the blunt force damage too closely. The adrenaline was wearing off, and he could feel the aches in his muscles protesting again along with his head. No point in tempting fate and making himself sick in the process.

The path split, but since one direction was blocked off by automatic doors that were refusing to open, he was forced to follow the path the strange creature took. Or that’s what he would guess based on the continued splotches of blood that continued to pop up.

Even if the thing was dead, what was left behind sure made him feel like he was walking into a horror movie.

There were stairs going upwards in the side hallway, and soon he realized that he was standing on the balcony overseeing the lobby. Bubby and Tommy were currently dumping everything they found behind the desk, but didn’t seem to notice his presence above them. Just the sight of his friends helped ground him and quieted the anxieties that threatened to overtake him.

But he didn’t want to disturb them with his illogical worries right now, so he continued his trek.

The next hallway quickly rounded another corner and lead into another set of automatic doors. Through the window, he could see Coomer’s familiar head of white hair, and he didn’t think twice about marching forward.

As the doors opened, Gordon raised a hand to wave and said, “Hey, Dr. Coomer-” He stopped as he took in the sight.

Coomer had his sledgehammer swung back like he was about to play a strength game at a carnival as he apparently aimed at something on the specimen table.

That something was the spitting image of Coomer with cloth tightly bound over his mouth, and he was lacking arms and legs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEHOLD, THE SCENE THAT WAS ENTIRE REASON I STARTED WRITING THIS FIC. It has changed a bit from the starting idea, but I'm pretty happy with the changes.
> 
> Gordon was referencing a Super Sledge from Fallout, if you want a better idea of what Coomer(?) was lugging around.


	6. Impostor Revealed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY FOR LEAVING EVERYONE ON A CLIFFHANGER FOR A MONTH. 
> 
> I want to thank everyone who commented on the last chapter. I was hoping the build up and pay off was worth it and reading the screaming made my day!

It felt like time itself froze when Gordon walked in, arm raised in greeting. Seeing Coomer try to kill a clone was… honestly still unsettling even if he had a vague reason for it. However, something about this image was wrong.

Coomer looked directly at him and cheerfully said, “Oh, hello there!”

And that’s when his heart dropped.

This couldn’t be _his_ Dr. Coomer.

His eyes dropped to the limbless Coomer lying on the table, but before he could look any closer, the presumed clone started speaking again. “My clone!” The exclamation was a perfect copy of Coomer’s usual speaking pattern, and the unnerving similarity sent a shudder down Gordon’s spine.

In lieu of any explanation, the clone tensed his arms in preparation to swing, and Gordon found himself quickly moving towards him. He tripped over his words as he tried to distract the man with the sledgehammer. “Hey, uh, wait. Isn’t this a bit much?”

The previously still Coomer on the table jerked at the sound of Gordon’s voice, and the head turned towards him. Whatever was said became a muffled grunt due to the cloth.

Confusion overtook the other Coomer’s face as he tried to figure out what Gordon meant, and it allowed Gordon enough time to get next to him. “No, this is the perfect amount of force to take out a clone!” He exclaimed as he prepared to swing again.

The clone found the sledgehammer unmoving when he tried to move it. Gordon gripped the handle halfway down the weapon with both hands. The grip was difficult to maintain since he had kept the crowbar in hand, but he refused to let it budge even as the clone tried to pull it over his head.

Gordon could never beat Dr. Coomer in a strength contest.

The clone struggled against him, but the awkward angle and the added weight made it a losing battle. “It’s just a clone. Let me finish-”

Cutting through the bullshit, Gordon argued, “You’re not Dr. Coomer.”

That snapped the clone out of the persona he had been putting on. He let go of the sledgehammer to properly face Gordon. “… Yes I am. We’re _all_ Dr. Coomer.” The flat tone dared Gordon to keep arguing.

Suddenly losing the tension of the impromptu tug-of-war on the sledgehammer nearly caused Gordon to tip over, but he caught himself in time to glance at the clone. The expressionless look on the clone’s face made Gordon drop the heavy sledgehammer and clutch the crowbar in front of him.

He didn’t even get to swing it before the clone charged into him. Despite Gordon’s height advantage and this clone’s apparent lack of cybernetics, it didn’t take much for Gordon to lose his balance as he struggled against the Coomer clone’s assault.

He saw stars as the back of his head connected with the hard floor, and it was a miracle he didn’t pass out again immediately.

It _hurt._

He screamed in pain. “FUCK!”

The clone tried to cover Gordon’s mouth to stifle the sound, and in the ensuing scuffle, Gordon’s glasses got knocked askew. Even as he fought for his life, he could hear the clone mutter, “You won’t get in my way. As long as 13 doesn’t suspect me-”

The blurry figure of his assailant suddenly sat stock still as they heard the automatic door open.

Gordon could only see the white of a scientist’s uniform, and while that could be one of his friends, he didn’t know for sure.

Until the intruder spoke. “What the hell are you...” The snappy tone trailed off as Bubby presumably took in the scene.

“Get off.” The sharp order was emphasized by the pump of a shotgun, and Gordon felt the weight of the clone lift. Without someone trying to suffocate him, Gordon was able to readjust his glasses so he could see what was going on, but when he tried moving too much, his head started pounding.

Bubby had the shotgun trained on the clone, and with the look Bubby was giving him, Gordon was surprised that the clone hadn’t caught on fire yet. Once the clone was no longer too close to Gordon or the Coomer on the table, Bubby pulled the trigger.

_Click._

No gunshot. Bubby looked down at the useless weapon.

“What? I just loaded-” Bubby was cut off as the clone lunged at him. The shotgun was dropped as Bubby was caught off guard in the sudden hand to hand struggle. Despite the surprise, Bubby was able to grab the hands reaching for his neck and held them away. At first, Bubby looked like he would overpower the clone. He _was_ stronger than he looked, and it was easy to forget that fact.

Until the clone stomped on his bad foot, causing Bubby to let go and stagger backwards. The clone was quick to pounce on the opening and managed to shove the unbalanced scientist to the ground.

At this point, Gordon struggled to sit up as he fought his aching head and body, but the sudden action made the room spin. Shutting his eyes so that he could get his bearings, he patted the floor frantically as he tried to relocate the crowbar. His hand finally landed on something, and when he pulled it close, a familiar metallic grating sound as he it dragged across the floor told him that he managed to find it.

After a few seconds, the smell of smoke assaulted his nose, and it caused his eyes to snap open again. The clone had apparently tried to run back towards Gordon and the sledgehammer, but Bubby had managed to latch onto his leg with his hands. Fire was licking Bubby’s sleeves as it climbed down his arms and onto the clone’s leg.

The clone furiously tried to pull his leg away, but Bubby’s grip did not falter even as he was jerked around the floor. Fire climbed as he did up the clone’s body. More flames joined the existing ones even where Bubby wasn’t touching him, and soon the clone’s entire body was aflame.

That was when Gordon finally noticed the screaming over the ringing in his ears. It was _so_ similar to Coomer’s screams of pain that it made it watching the scene unbearable. Despite knowing this wasn’t his friend, it still made a quiet voice in the back of his head question whether this was actually a clone or not.

Even though the clone himself admitted the deception, he couldn’t ignore the almost instinctive fear for his friends that kicked in. He managed to stagger to a standing position, and despite the obvious distraction in the room, he finally got a good look at the Dr. Coomer on the table.

Despite the head being turned towards the fight, Gordon could see the eyes were wide with terror, and there was a large red mark on the side of his head that was partially hidden by the curly white hair. A slashed hospital gown had been the only thing he had been deemed worthy to wear.

He was also trying his damnedest to move his limbless body towards the fight, even if he couldn’t really help.

This _had_ to be his Dr. Coomer.

With a shaking hand, Gordon reached for the cloth that was covering the poor scientist’s mouth, and when he made contact with the back of Coomer’s head, he suddenly twitched and fixed _Gordon_ with a fearful look.

It quickly melted to relief.

Until burning hands snatched him off the table.

“NO!”

Gordon wasn’t sure who yelled that. Or if it had been his and Bubby’s voices melding together.

The clone desperately held onto Coomer’s torso like a koala, clearly determined to either use him as a living shield or to take him down with him.

The fire was quickly spreading to Coomer’s clothing.

Gordon was so fixated on that sight that he missed seeing what Bubby was doing. Until he saw the bald scientist _lunge_ towards the clone in a way that brought back a primal fear in Gordon. It reminded him way too much of how the feral prototypes had tried to bite his face off.

Well, Gordon could at least say Bubby didn’t aim for the face.

He sure bit the hell out of the clone’s shoulder as he tried to yank Coomer away, though.

With the clone distracted, Gordon quickly stumbled his way over to the fight and took the easy opportunity Bubby had provided. All he knew next was that he was swinging his crowbar at the clone’s head in fury.

A loud _THUD_ sounded as the blow connected.

As the clone dropped to the ground like a burning rock, Bubby was finally able to yank Coomer away from his embrace and immediately worked on putting out the few flames that had managed to take hold.

Gordon just stood there in shock. He hadn’t expected him to go down so easily, but the clone wasn’t breathing or reacting to the fire still engulfing him.

Maybe he should put that out before they started smelling it...

The automatic doors opened again.

Gordon already had his crowbar up for another swing, and Bubby pulled Coomer closer to him.

“Mr.-Mr. Freeman? Dr. Bubby? What-What happened?”

Tommy was standing in the door carrying a much bigger gun than a pistol, and it was easy to see the extra ammunition poking out of his pockets.

The tension immediately eased, and Bubby took the opportunity to finally get the cloth removed from Coomer’s mouth.

“Oh thank God, it’s you, Tommy.” Gordon sighed in relief. “We uh-”

“Hello, Gordon!” Coomer’s voice still possessed its usual volume, startling the hell out of everyone in the room. In the silence that followed, he simply said, “My clone!”

“Yeah, uh, the Dr. Coomer we found _wasn’t_ our Coomer,” Gordon tried to explain. “I found him trying to kill Coomer and things went south.”

“That’s vague as hell.”

“He was trying to collapse my head in like a rotten watermelon! And then tried to strangle Gordon!”

Gordon rolled his eyes, but there wasn’t much bite in the action. “… Yeah, and then Bubby came in-” He stopped as a question hit him, “Wait, how did you get here so quickly? I wasn’t gone for that long.”

“… I have my reasons.” Bubby was pointedly looking away from him. With Coomer no longer in danger of burning and able to speak, Bubby didn’t have an easy distraction for his hands, so he wandered over to the observation area to snoop around.

“Did you suspect something already?”

Bubby didn’t have a chance to deny the answer when Coomer spoke up, “Probably! The project was supposed to make a hive mind between me and my clones, but, well, things didn’t quite work out. In other words, no clone can perfectly impersonate me. Even if they try.” Despite starting in his typical chipper voice, the last few words were spoken softly.

Gordon didn’t like the realization that it had taken him so long to figure out something was wrong. There had been a few things that seemed _off,_ but with how things had gone ever since the Resonance Cascade, it had faded into the background.

“Damn, you must know each other pretty well, if Bubby caught on so quickly.” The observation posed a question if they wanted to answer it, but it also left them an out if they chose not to elaborate.

Which they didn’t. Bubby was digging into a box he found, and Coomer had seemingly turned his attention back to Tommy.

Tommy hadn’t moved since the conversation started.

“Tommy?” Gordon went in his direction, and with the adrenaline wearing off, his body started its loud protesting of the treatment he had just given it. A few more bruises to join the already existing ones. He staggered, and that seemed to snap Tommy out of the daze he was in.

“Mr. Freeman?” The response came out so quietly that Gordon almost didn’t hear it. Tommy closed the gap between them and offered an arm to help Gordon stabilize before gently guiding him to the ground to sit. “Take-Take it easy.”

While appreciative of the concern directed towards himself, _he_ was worried about _Tommy_. The guy had only gotten quieter as the day had progressed, and it seemed like he wasn’t entirely there. Before he could ask, Tommy had already left his side and went over to the very dead clone.

And fired a full clip into the corpse. Which was suddenly no longer burning.

Once again, everyone jumped at the loud, sudden noise, and Gordon called out, “Hey, he’s dead! He can’t hurt us anymore! Don’t waste the ammo.”

Tommy didn’t respond until the gun clicked to signify that the clip was empty. “Had to-had to make sure. They always say to uh, double-double tap, right?”

“That’s- That’s a bit more than just a double tap, man.” Despite the words, his voice didn’t have any reproach. He ended up patting the ground next to him, “Why don’t you rest a minute? You’ve been going non-stop for a while now.”

“I’m fine, Mr. Freeman. I gotta-I gotta make sure Dr. Coomer is okay.” Tommy temporarily dropped the gun to his side for a moment as he went to get a better look at Dr. Coomer.

Gordon thought about joining them, but his eyes started to flutter shut as their voices blurred into a background hum. Maybe just a few minutes…

“Are you alright?” The sudden question and the identity of the person asking surprised Gordon so much that he forgot to answer. Eyes snapping back open, he looked up at Bubby, who was cradling the shotgun from earlier again.

Instead of answering the question, he asked, “Isn’t that broken?”

“No, it’s just jammed, but I’m getting the shells out of it to use in a different one.” Bubby pointed the gun away from him as he started pulling out the ammo. “You probably shouldn’t throw guns like that anymore.” Once he finished, he nudged a green army supply box towards him. “Anyway, you shouldn’t be sleeping, so help me look through this.”

Despite the phrasing, as soon as Gordon opened the lid, Bubby walked away. Oh well. There wasn’t much else he could do, so he started to dig through the various supplies to see if there was anything they could take.

Which got boring really quickly when most of it was junk. To help keep his mind moving, he asked Coomer the first thing that came to mind, “Hey your, uh, clone mentioned something earlier and we overheard some soldiers talking about it. Did you see a monster alien thing running through?”

“Why of course, Gordon! You can clearly see the blood on the ceiling and walls from the soldiers it killed and from damage it took!”

Now that Gordon wasn’t preoccupied with saving Coomer, he finally took in the rest of the room. And Coomer wasn’t lying.

There was a blackened blood spray dried onto the ceiling which looked like it came from the monster, and there were a few splotches on the wall intermixed with a dark red from at least one injured or dead human.

Interestingly, the smear on the floor went around the table. Given some of the damage earlier, he didn’t think it would have cared about slamming into another piece of furniture, but apparently it had cared about this one. Or it was chasing someone who decided to go around.

He shuddered.

“It didn’t bother you at all?”

“Nope! When I heard the soldiers radio in that it was coming this way, I laid very still and kept very quiet!”

“And it just. Ignored you? And did you see what it looked like?”

“I had to keep my eyes closed, Gordon. Otherwise it might have guessed I was still alive thanks to my sparkling eyes!” The unexpected moment of pure self confidence drew a short laugh from Gordon, and Coomer continued. “I heard it stop and sniff, but given my current state, it must have assumed I was already dead!”

Current state.

Wait.

“Shit! _Where the fuck are your arms and legs?!”_ Sure he noticed that they were missing when he first walked in, _but given what he walked into,_ figuring out the hows and whys of the situation had fallen to the wayside.

“Are you fucking blind?” Bubby shouted from the observation room. “He’s been missing them this whole time!”

“I NOTICED THAT, MAN, BUT WHERE DID THEY GO?”

“Oh the military took them! They’re top of the line cybernetics, and I would be too difficult to contain if they didn’t remove them.” If this had been anyone else, Gordon would have interpreted this as overconfident bragging, but he knew Coomer well enough that he was stating a fact. “And it would increase the chances of at least _something_ from me getting out.”

“Oh hell yes!” Bubby’s triumphant voice echoed through the chamber, drawing all present to look towards him. After a minute, he exited the observation room with some clothes and something metal.

“Good job, Bubby, you found my Power Legs! And clothes! I can’t wait to wear something other than this cold hospital gown.” The genuine warmth that seeped into Coomer’s voice eased something in Gordon’s chest. Sure Coomer had kept his chipper attitude throughout the conversation, but it had been teetering the line of being forced.

Not that Gordon could blame him.

Bubby thankfully seemed to know what he was doing when it came to helping Coomer get his legs reattached, so Gordon went back to focusing on Tommy. At some point during the conversation, Tommy had reloaded his gun and was standing near the far exit. Gordon called out, “What’s going on, man? We’ve taken out most of the soldiers by now, right?”

“There-there has to be at least one soldier ahead of us, Mr. Freeman. Whoever took out the mon-The monster. And the aliens have been just- They keep teleporting around.”

Yeah, Gordon felt dumb after that. Tommy _was_ right, and he should have connected those dots on his own. “Sorry. Gordon’s head kinda hurts still.” He gingerly leaned his head forward and closed his eyes in hopes that the ache would stop.

He would have stayed like that if Tommy hadn’t crossed the room at record speed and knelt by him. “You-You okay? Don’t-You-You can’t fall asleep.”

Gordon opened his eyes to see Tommy’s frightened visage hovering nearby, and the closeness made a faint trembling in the other man’s frame much more obvious.

“I’m-I’m fine, Tommy, I wasn’t dozing off.” Right then, anyway. “I’m just...” He quickly debated lying, but he didn’t think he could make it believable. “It hurts a lot. The clone slammed me against the floor.” He raised an arm as if to rub the back of his head, but caught himself halfway and lowered it. “Just. Don’t worry about me, right now. You can keep guarding the door.”

After a moment of almost uncomfortable staring, Tommy nodded before retaking his spot.

They’d be so fucked without him.

Before anymore musing could happen, Gordon was distracted by watching Bubby help Coomer sit upright. He still had the hospital gown on covering his torso, and it was left on while Bubby buttoned up the shirt he threw on him. It wasn’t until there were a few buttons left that Bubby pulled the gown out through the hole.

Gordon had no idea why they went through such a complicated method of taking the gown off, but it felt like it was ringing a bell. Unfortunately, said bell made his head ache more, so he mentally shook that line of thinking for now.

Bubby must have somehow figured out the pants while getting the legs on, because once they had settled the shirt on, Coomer twisted himself around so that his lower legs hung off the table. The position allowed Bubby to shove on some socks and shoes with ease, and with that, Coomer scooted off the table.

Bubby was close enough for Coomer to lean against as he tested the legs, and soon he was standing upright with few troubles. His balance seemed to be off, but that could easily be attributed to his lack of arms and readjusting to having legs.

As an afterthought, Bubby tied the labcoat around Coomer’s waist. “Alright, that should do it.”

“Thank you, Professor!” Coomer was beaming at Bubby with a mischievous glint.

“Doctor.”

“Professor!”

Gordon couldn’t help but laugh as they continued the old argument. It was such a ridiculous thing, and he had heard it several times by this point, but it was _familiar_. He was laughing so much that he didn’t notice when Coomer had come over.

“Hello, Gordon! We should get moving! We still have to find a scientist who can let us out of this building.” The announcement was enough to jolt him out of his laughing fit, and he wiped his eyes before standing up and giving Coomer a wide, genuine smile.

The now familiar aches of his body were still there, but it was easier to ignore them with a lighter heart.

“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a bit difficult to get out, so that's why there was such a delay.
> 
> Btw, feel free to read as much gay as you want into the chapter because hot damn I think my preferred ship and some other headcanons slipped out. If you want to read it platonically, though, that's also perfectly valid.
> 
> ALSO, THANKS TO THE COMMENTARY COMING OUT ON YOUTUBE IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT THE DONUT JOKE VARIANT I PUT IN CHAPTER 1 WAS APPARENTLY IN LINE WITH SCORPY'S THINKING, AND I STILL HAVEN"T RECOVERED FROM THAT REALIZATION.


	7. It's You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for mentions of graphic injuries. 
> 
> I have a friend reading this, so calling out a specific warning that after the line "A human was standing on the other side," there's going to be a description of a human with some pretty bad injuries to the face and elsewhere.

The backtracking to the lobby didn’t take long. Tommy had already organized things into piles, and after figuring out bags and/or pockets, they distributed some to everyone. Coomer insisted on also carrying some of the load, and after finding a way to extend the straps, he had a duffel bag strapped across his chest.

After much internal (and external) debate, Gordon finally picked up a pistol and some ammo to go with it. Of course with the caveat that he would use it properly and not throw it on impulse. He still mostly carried stuff for the others, though.

The automatic sensors for the other set of doors in the hall were still busted, so they had to trek back through the room where they had found the real Coomer. Now that he knew it was there, the blood splattered and smeared everywhere only enhanced the creepy feeling of the room.

Gordon couldn’t contain a small shudder when passing by the dead clone.

In an attempt to distract himself from darker thoughts, he glanced at the opened cage doors that were built into the wall and asked, “What did Black Mesa keep in here? Did you see how it got out, Coomer?”

Cheerfully, Coomer answered, “More aliens like the ones we saw earlier! Headcrabs, based on the screeches I could hear. The soldiers couldn’t hit them through the bars, so they opened the cages before opening fire again!”

Before Gordon could even think to respond to that information, Bubby interjected, “It was more ethical, anyway.”

“At least the animals got to run out of their cages before they died.”

On one hand, he could see where they were coming from, but on the other, he had to ask, “Can we even call those animals? They’re… I dunno they’re not exactly-”

“Can I call _you_ an animal, Gordon?” Coomer asked.

Utterly derailed from trying to remember Linnaean Taxonomy and how it probably wasn’t intended for Xenobiology, Gordon couldn’t help but stammer out, “N-no? I’m a hum-”

Without bothering to hear his response, Coomer bolted for the exit. “Let’s get moving!”

At least the interruption kept him from finishing that statement and earning a taxonomy lecture straight from Wikipedia. The others quickly followed behind. Or at least as quickly as they could with Bubby limping, and Tommy constantly looking back towards Gordon.

Not wanting to hold the others up and wanting to get out of the room, Gordon tried to jog to the exit. His pounding head reminded him why that was a bad idea, so he settled for a brisk walk.

Thankfully, Coomer hadn’t gone too far in his brief sprint down the hallway, and he was standing still as he waited for the rest of them around the corner. When they got close to him, he smiled and said, “Looks like someone else already handled all the explosives in this hallway!”

That was an understatement. The hallway in front of them was covered in burn marks and blood of human and alien origin. The carnage in the hallway and the room branching off from it contained the bodies of soldiers and some bigger aliens that they hadn’t seen before.

It looked as if most of them had been torn apart with claws, not exploded by a mine.

Before they could get a better look at the strange aliens or dig through the soldier’s pockets for ammo, heavy, clunking footsteps echoed down the hall. Gordon edged himself in front of Coomer, and Tommy and Bubby had their guns ready.

“I said I already took care of it! Over.”

There was a reply, but the static made it impossible to discern what was said.

“The damn thing is trapped in a room it can’t get out of. It took out the entire squadron on its own. I’m not facing it again without back up…. Over.” Another reply. “What do you _mean_ you already sent back up, there’s-”  
  
The soldier rounded the corner and was immediately shot twice. The radio clattered onto the ground as he died, and it fell to pieces.

“… Was the crotch shot really necessary?” Gordon raised his eyebrows at Bubby.

“Of course, Gordon. They’re all assholes, and Tommy was going to kill him anyway.”

He shouldn’t have expected anything less.

As they proceeded past the former mine trap, Gordon nearly tripped on… Something. He couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it kind of reminded him of an antler. This was much pointier and bigger than most deer’s, and there was the fact that it was leaking the same ink black blood that they had seen smeared everywhere. All he could guess that it was something from the alien creature.

They couldn’t do anything with it, even if Coomer wanted to keep it as a trophy, so they left it there.

The rest of the hallway was still littered with the remains from the long, drawn out fight, even when they made it to an area that branched in several directions.

“Oh there’s a scientist!” Coomer declared. Everyone followed his gaze through a glass automatic door.

He was right, there were a few scientists hiding in the far room.

But there was also a surgery machine on the fritz blocking the entire path. And even disregarding that, the door refused to open. Or break, when Coomer tried kicking it in.

“Anyone have any ideas for getting over there?” Gordon asked helplessly.

Bubby crossed his arms as he looked around before saying, “I’ve got an idea, but we have to keep following this horror movie blood trail to get to it.”

“You know this place pretty well, right? We can give it a shot.”

“Of course he does! When you spend most of your life in an area, you get to learn the ins and outs. Especially the places you’re not supposed to notice!” Coomer gave Bubby a pointed look and grin.

The jab brought a brief smile to Bubby’s face, but it disappeared quickly as he readjusted his grip on his gun and waved towards the hall they needed to go down.

It was easy to see that the far end was dark in comparison to where they currently stood.

As they got closer, Gordon could see that the overhead lights had been taken out by something. Given that there was a blackened blood smear on the ceiling, he was willing to guess it was the same alien they had been all but following. If given the opportunity to, he would absolutely deviate from this morbid path, but between all the locked doors and loop backs, there weren’t many other directions to go.

And they _had_ to find a way to the scientists on the other side of the surgical machine room.

With flashlights readied, they ventured into the dim hallway. After a turn, it didn’t take long before the ambient light from the previous hall couldn’t reach them, and darkness surrounded them.

Tommy was again taking point, and it took Gordon a minute to realize that he still only had the large gun out. No flashlight in sight.

Gordon was about to comment on it when something caught his eye further ahead. He squinted as he tried to make out what it could be, but it disappeared each time his or Bubby’s light shone on it. When the lights were pointed in that direction, he could see another intersection, but when they weren’t, it was like he could see really faint colors?

Not wanting to walk headfirst into trouble, he stopped and whispered, “Hey guys, uh, did you see that?” Without the hum of electricity, his voice carried much further than he thought it would, and he cringed at how loud it was.

However, his companions didn’t quite have the same idea, and they all replied in their normal speaking voices. At least they decided to stop and face him while responding.

“I can see the end of a hallway, and not much else, Gordon!”

“Are you trying to scare us? This isn’t the time for that.” Despite the snarky response, Bubby wasn’t doing the best job at hiding a tremor in his voice.

“What are you- What do you think you saw, Mr. Freeman?”

“I dunno, it’s like there’s a weird glow down that way? Can’t really see it when our lights are on it, though.” He pointed towards the dim colors that faintly lit up one path in the intersection while keeping the HEV suit flashlight covered.

Bubby followed his example as they all looked, and there was a beat of silence as they tried to figure out what they were looking at.

He broke the silence by asking, “Who the hell is having a rave in here?”

“Oh I do love a good rave. I hope they have extra glowsticks.” Gordon heard more than saw Coomer walking towards the intersection, and he uncovered his light before trying to catch up with him.

Unease crawled up Gordon’s spine, and he fidgeted with the crowbar as they got closer. Once they made it, Gordon instinctively shirt-collared Coomer before he could take off towards the light source. The hallway where the lights were coming from was empty, but he could make out a few windows on one side, and on the other was a door. In order to get to the door, however, they would have to pass at least one window.

Most of the windows had a myriad of colors shining through them. The colors would pulse and change at any given moment, and there didn’t appear to be a rhyme or reason in the timing or what color would appear next.  
  
Except for the furthest window, where there was still a rainbow shining through, but it was dominated by an extremely bright red that would flash a few times before giving way to a greenish color. Afterwards, the pattern would start again.

While the light show was admittedly interesting to look at, he still couldn’t figure out what was causing it, and didn’t want to find out if he could help it. He backed up and tried to guide Coomer with him. “Let’s try the other way first.”

Bubby’s voice rang out behind him. “Already did. The door’s locked.”

“Wait, when did you-”

“While you were staring at the lights like a- like a moth at a zapper.” The way that statement was phrased did not help Gordon’s nerves. For all they knew, the light show was something else dangerous and used light to incapacitate its prey.

“So the only way to go is through the lights that may or may not kill us.”

“Looks like it.” Tommy came up in his peripheral, and even from that position, Gordon could tell that he was concerned too.

Tommy then took the first few steps forward, and Gordon had to let go of Coomer or else trip and get dragged behind. Bubby joined Coomer’s side, but he first elbowed Gordon to snap him out of the daze he was in.

He jumped, but he elected to not respond to the dig and brought up the rear.

His anxiety eased when the lights didn’t appear to have an effect on anyone as they touched them, and while the others went straight for the door, he couldn’t help but look into the window as he passed by.

_What the fuck is that?_

He stopped dead as he tried to put together just what his eyes were seeing. The function of the room was hard to discern thanks to the presence of a very large creature taking up a good portion of it and the green miasma muddying the air.

The creature was… Every color at once, but it wasn’t white. At least most of the time. It was constantly changing colors, and it registered in Gordon’s mind that this had to be causing the light show. Despite the rainbow death rave, there were also several spots on its body where there were splotches of black leaking out and pooling onto the floor.

Something that looked like a branched tail covered the back half of the room, and he couldn’t tell if it was twitching or if it was doing the real world equivalent of glitching out. What he _could_ tell was that there were spikes lining each branch, and they went up the creature’s back as well.

The long body had several sets of limbs, or it would if it didn’t look like it was missing some. What _was_ there had long claws and talons depending on which leg you were looking at, and he could have sworn that the backmost set had hooves. Black blood leaked out of the holes where it appeared to be missing limbs.

There was something covering the chest area that looked like it could have been inspired by a rib cage, but the pieces were jagged, and at least one piece was piercing the creature’s side.

When his eyes finally made it to the head of the creature, he noticed a few things. It appeared to have an antler not unlike a deer’s, and there was a jagged nub next to it on the creature’s head. The air locked door that it was next to had a few dents in it, but the weakly nudging head and scraping clawed hand were no longer doing any damage to it.

Out of the creature’s mouth came several floating orbs that were matching the red and green pattern he noticed earlier.

Something felt familiar.

“Guys? I think we found the alien?” He shouted over his shoulder.

When he looked back at the creature, the orbs changed to a vivid and violent orange, and suddenly there were eyes on him.

Hundreds of eyes opened on the creature’s body; all of them with black sclera, deep blue irises, and cat-like pupils.

Despite this, the creature’s head laboriously turned, and the ruff of fur on the creature’s neck appeared to fluff out. The face of the creature felt familiar, like he should know what kind of animal it was, but he couldn’t place it since there were eyes all over and in places they shouldn’t be. And he was pretty sure half of the face had been fucked up in the fight with the soldiers.

Even though the window was apparently strong enough to contain it, Gordon could not help feeling incredibly small in the presence of this angry alien. Someone tried to speak, but he swatted a hand towards them as if hoping silence would keep the thing from getting pissed off.

He really didn’t want to test their luck, and he inched backwards in the hopes that they’d be able to run away if it _did_ somehow manage to break through.

After a moment of being stared down in silence, the fur fell flat, and the orbs briefly changed to a clear blue and possessed a wavey effect.

Then the creature started to shrink as the remaining clawed hand pointed towards a window next to the door it had been attacking.

“I do believe it wants us to go to the observatory room window!” Coomer’s voice nearly made Gordon jump ten feet into the air.

“JESUS CHRIST!” Gordon slammed a hand against his chest as he tried to control his breathing again.

Bubby appeared on Gordon’s other side. “Don’t think he has anything to do with it.” The sarcastic comment managed to draw an eye roll and a laugh from him, but it helped calm his racing heart.

“Anyway… I don’t know about this, what if it’s-” He wasn’t even able to finish the thought before Tommy rushed past him. Gordon turned to see where he was going, and his light illuminated a blood smear that Tommy appeared to be following

He waited for them just beyond the last window, where Gordon noticed the smear take a sharp turn, and he stopped and waved for the others to follow. Once they had gotten there, the door opened, and they almost all jumped when Tommy fired a shot.

There was a headcrab zombie’s upper half lying on the floor. Based on the fresh blood trail barely visible over the black painting the floor, it had been trying to crawl towards them before Tommy sniped it.

As they filed into the wrecked observatory room, Gordon couldn’t help but notice the biohazard and poison warnings plastered everywhere. It was probably related to whatever that green stuff floating in the room was, and if it was able to incapacitate _whatever the hell that was_ it had to be potent.

Speaking of.

While the others meandered around the room, Gordon found the window into the environment room and tried to see what the creature’s deal was. There was an intercom set up right next to it, and thought it might be useful if the thing tried talking to him.

Once he was done messing with that, he looked into the window.

A human was standing on the other side.

Specifically, a man wearing a fucked up Security uniform. The helmet was literally in pieces, and Gordon did not want to know how half of it was staying on when the other half was gone, along with that side of the man’s face. The shirt and vest were shredded and littered with holes, and he was pretty certain that the other was missing an arm and a chunk of their chest.

The one eye that was left still had the dark sclera, slit pupil, and unnaturally blue iris of the creature’s.

“Yo.”

The voice was raspy as hell, as if just making that sound hurt.

It sounded like Benrey.

The imitation of another friend’s voice caused Gordon’s figurative hackles to raise as he remembered the incident with the Coomer clone. Accusingly, he snapped through the intercom, “Benrey’s dead, asshole. What are you?”

The eye widened for a second before the person on the other side leaned against the window. It would have been a lot scarier if not for the arm on display clearly trying to keep him upright. “It’s me, your bro.”  
  
“That doesn’t answer the question-”

“That room is full of Cyanogen Chloride!” Tommy announced. Gordon stopped glaring at the impostor in the window long enough to see that Tommy was looking at a tank that was strapped into a device that must be feeding it into the room.

“If- If that’s Benrey, that’s _really_ bad.” He sounded panicked.

“Cyanogen Chloride is a toxic chemical compound with the formula-” Coomer helpfully began to explain.

Tommy joined Gordon over by the window. “You know Benrey came back- has gotten better from worse things than a gunshot, right?”

Gordon flinched at the reminder. That… was right. He blamed his likely existing concussion for forgetting that little fact. “But how do we know its him and not some shapeshifting alien that’s trying to kill us later?”

Even that seemed to stump Tommy.

“Just ask him something that only Benrey knows,” Bubby said with confidence.

Aggravated, Gordon argued, “But I don’t _know_ what all he knows! He keeps disappearing and shit!”

“Well ask _him_!” Coomer’s advice didn’t make a lot of sense to Gordon, but if the glassy look in the possible Benrey’s eye implied anything, it was that they didn’t have a lot of time to figure it out.

“You know what? Convince me in _one_ sentence that you’re Benrey. Or we’re going.”

The ultimatum hung heavy in the air, but for a second, Gordon wondered if he was even paying attention. He thought he was right to wonder that considering that the entity looked away for a while.

He almost repeated the demand when Benrey(?) all but fell against the window and asked, “Where’s your passport?”

No one else would ask that goddamned question.

“Oh _shit.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter went through so many different idea phases, it's not funny. Originally I had planned on something else happening in the mine room from hell with the alien grunts, but when I decided I wanted to end the chapter where I did, I ended up moving that encounter to happen later. 
> 
> For those of you who are only familiar with HLVRAI and/or the original Half-Life game, the room Benrey is in is something from Black Mesa, and yes it has a thing of poison gas that you can use to poison a bunch of headcrabs with. That's where I got the name for the poison as well. 
> 
> Also! I'll be editing this note later with a link to some art Jadewhisper did while we were hashing out a design for Benrey's form, so be sure to check that out! 
> 
> Edit: HERE IS THE LINK: [Monster Benrey Form](https://jadewhisper.tumblr.com/post/632831724398739456/so-apparently-i-cant-resist-a-good-monster-so)
> 
> Sweet Voice translations:  
> Flashing red to jade= I'm really hurt and afraid
> 
> Orange like a traffic cone= LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE
> 
> Watery blue= Oh, it's you.  
> (This one really means "Relief" but this is the mnemonic used to remember it)


	8. Reunited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General warning for my friend: any scene with Benrey in it will possibly mention his current fucked up state, and the sentence starting with "Most notably, though, there was the body of a soldier," will have a brief description of a torn apart dead body.

There was a lot to unpack involving the full realization of just _how_ inhuman Benrey was, but all of it was shoved aside thanks to the current problem.

Which was that Benrey was horribly injured and trapped in a room that was full of a poisonous gas, and, if Coomer’s continued explanation from Wikipedia was anything to go by, it was really, _really_ bad. Gordon did not know the limits of Benrey’s ability to heal, but if he looked this bad while getting poison shoved down his lungs, Gordon wasn’t sure about Benrey’s chances of bouncing back if he stayed for too long.

The worry cranked up to eleven when Benrey suddenly collapsed below the window.

Gordon ran over to the control console and anxiously glanced over all the buttons and levers that clearly had something to do with the environmental room. “Shit, is there like, an emergency release button?!”

Tommy wasn’t far behind. “There should- there _has_ to be one. It’s gotta be OSHA compliant!”

“No offense, Tommy, but given everything else you’ve said followed OSHA, that doesn’t mean _shit.”_

“I was _joking_ then, Mr. Freeman.”

The conversation was cut off by Bubby yelling, “Look for ‘Emergency Ventilation!’ They might be idiots, but they don’t want to waste _that_ much space and money on a bricked room.” He had taken Tommy’s place at the tank of poison and was fiddling with something over there.

Now that he knew what to look for, Gordon renewed his search, but Tommy was already reaching over him and slammed a fist onto a button. “Woah-”

A sound not unlike an air conditioning unit but much louder kicked in, and there was an immediate change in the enclosed room as the green started to clear out. With the fog fading away and the lack of a large rainbow body covering the floor, it was much easier to see what the room used to be.

The rocky terrain was mostly barren by this point, with the remains of possibly alien plants dotted around pools of water. Corpses of headcrabs were also strewn about, but, shockingly, they were mostly still intact despite Benrey’s presence.

Most notably, though, there was the body of a soldier, and Gordon could not say the same about it. It was in more pieces than Benrey’s still alive body. There was an arm in the corner, a leg by that murky pool, and Gordon had to look away from the torso with organs leaking out of it.

That was enough nightmares for today.

He anxiously waited for the door to unlock, but despite the toxin being flushed out by fresh air and vented elsewhere, there wasn’t a click or a hiss or any other sound he would associate with an unlocking pressurized door.

“Uh, why-”

The overhead sprinklers in the sealed room turned on; the hiss of spraying water was immediately covered up by a sharp scream that could only have come from Benrey.

Gordon slammed against the window as he tried to see what was going on. “Benrey? Dude, you okay?” He knew the question was stupid, but due to where Benrey dropped, it was difficult to see the security guard from the angle the window allowed.

“What are you doing?” The tone would be called whiny if it wasn’t for the gasps of pain that punctuated each word.

The implied accusation stung. “I don’t know! We hit the button to clear out the gas and-”

Tommy interrupted, “Sorry Benrey! That stuff- That gas residue can stick. The room has special surfactant laced water in the sprinklers and… yeah. Just hold on a little longer, okay?”

The explanation was met with silence.

“Benrey?” Gordon couldn’t help but call out.

“Oh. Okay. I can chill a bit.” The voice was strained, but at least he spoke at all.

The tension left his shoulders a little. As long as Benrey was still talking, they knew he was fine. At least it sounded like his voice wasn’t as raspy this time.

Unfortunately, all they could do was wait until the room went through a complete clean cycle if the book Tommy had pulled out was right.

Feeling bad for their stuck companion, Gordon turned the intercom on and panicked when he didn’t have an immediate topic to bring up. Latching onto the first question his mind thought of, he asked, “So uh, was this why you kept disappearing on us earlier?”

More silence.

“Benrey?”

“Hey bro. Appreciate what you’re doing, but please no talking? Pretty please? I’ll be fine. Promise.” Benrey’s voice was barely audible over the fans getting louder.

The pained plea immediately made Gordon feel guilty, so he turned the intercom off and started to pace in front of the window. The sound made it difficult for any of them to hold a conversation, even if Benrey wasn’t involved, so Gordon was stuck alone in his thoughts as he waited for the door to finally open. From a different perspective, it looked like he was all but bouncing between Bubby and Tommy, but he didn’t get to appreciate that mental image due to worrying over the condition Benrey was in.

He was still reeling over the full understanding that Benrey’s one off line about not being human was not an impulsive gag, but a truthful statement. Sure, he probably should have guessed by now given Benrey’s apparent powers, but Gordon still thought that he was more in line with Bubby or Coomer. An… Enhanced human, if anything else.

But nope, Benrey was apparently a shapeshifting monster that had a human form. The scientist in Gordon was intrigued at the apparent alien life form, but the empathetic part of him knew that outright asking shit like that would be rude at best. De-human… Depersonalizing at worst.

Sure Benrey gave him hell, but it wasn’t like Benrey had been outright malicious. Hell, he had even rescued Coomer.

… Actually, he was probably also the thing that slammed into Bubby’s tube to release him.

Damn, Gordon really felt bad for being a dick to Benrey earlier, now.

His thoughts were interrupted as a loud hissing sound brought his attention back to the room, and Tommy all but yanked the door off its hinges before catching himself. “Mr. Freeman, you have to, uh. You’re wearing an HEV suit. You have to be the one to pull him out.”

Nodding, Gordon quickly passed him and entered the now supposedly cleaned environmental room. Benrey was huddled under the observation window, and when he looked up at Gordon, he actually had more than half of a face.

The sight of muscle and bone still made Gordon recoil in horror. “Holy _shit,_ dude. Doesn’t that hurt?”

Benrey half-heartedly gave a one-armed shrug. “I’ll regen soon, don’t worry about it.”

“That doesn’t mean this doesn’t suck ass!” Hell, just _looking_ at him was making him queasy. But the half-drowned puppy look compelled him to at least _try_ to ease the poor guy’s pain. “Come on let’s get you out of here.” He knelt down and tried to figure out where he could potentially touch Benrey without hurting him.

“Need a hand?” Benrey rolled over, and clutched in his remaining hand was a now very muddy arm.

Needless to say, the visual equivalent of a non-sequitur gave Gordon pause as he tried to process just what he was looking at.

“Why the _fuck_ do you have a random arm?”

“Wasn’t his.” He lazily waved the arm like it was a magic wand and pointed the hand end towards the dead soldier.

Gordon could feel his stress headache building. “What do you mean _it wasn’t his?”_

In lieu of saying anything, Benrey shoved the other end of the arm into Gordon’s face, and the movement startled Gordon into falling on his ass.

He was so glad that he couldn’t feel the mud through the HEV suit.

“Dude, what the fuck?”

“Look, it’s not, uh, natural.”

“I don’t want to look at the bony end-” He stopped and stared at the place he knew there should be blood and bone, but there were bits that looked shiny under the mud. “Metal?”

“Yeah. Not his. He’s kinda made of meat.”

“Is this… Dr. Coomer’s arm?”

“Think so. Tried to get it back for ‘em”

… That’s right, Benrey was the monster that chased the soldiers that had taken Dr. Coomer apart.

Gordon shook his head as he got back on his feet. “You can show him when we get out. Come on...”

Given Benrey’s current state, Gordon finally decided to just try picking him up bridal style. Other than a few grunts of pain as he was shifted around, Benrey kept mostly quiet.

Exiting became a problem since the others had all elected to stand directly in the doorway to peer in like children trying to snoop on their parents. He rolled his eyes, but before he could say anything, Benrey shouted, “LET ME OUT OF THIS BOX!”

The sudden volume actually made Bubby and Tommy scramble out of the way, but it took a not so subtle yank from Bubby to make Coomer move.

With the path clear, Gordon walked in and found a relatively clean spot next to a wall to put Benrey. “Here we go. Sorry, can’t do anything more comfy for ya.”

“It’s fine,” He said before shoving the arm into Gordon’s hands. “I gotta. Gotta nap.”

While the thought of staying too long made him nervous, Gordon couldn’t help but agree with him there. They could afford to take a break for a while. “Alright, I’ll get you up before we leave.”

“Sounds good.” The one eye was already drifting shut, but the steady breathing soothed Gordon’s fear.

Despite still being worried, he could _see_ some of the skin regrowing on Benrey’s face, and, frankly, Gordon didn’t want to get sick. Instead, he turned to the others, nearly bumped into Tommy with how close he had been standing, and asked Coomer, “Hey, your arm-”

“Look, Gordon, you found my left Extendo-arm!”

“-Your arm is dirty. Do we have to do anything special to clean it?”

“Nope! It’s perfectly waterproof even when unattached. You’ve even seen me swim with it.”

“The chemicals in the water should have- should have made it safe to use. Even after exposure to- Even after being exposed to the poison.”

“Okay so just some good old soap and water to get off the dirt should be fine.” With that, he walked over the bloodstains to one of the sinks built into the counters. He tested one of the faucet handles, and sighed in relief when water flowed out of the tap. Grateful that the water was still working, he started trying to wipe off all the mud.

Progress was… Slow, however.

“How the HELL did this get so fucking dirty?”

The clunky gloves of the HEV suit didn’t make it any easier, either. As he scrubbed at a particularly stubborn clump of dirt, he glanced over towards Tommy and Benrey.

Tommy was practically standing over Benrey. Like he was guarding him.

But before he could say something to him, Bubby and Coomer’s movements caught his eye as they wandered towards Gordon’s other side.

Coomer had moved first. Something had caught his attention, and he was walking towards the other sink. Then Bubby’s examination of the poison tank ended, and he joined Coomer in looking over what was left on the counters.

They both stood in front of a strange egg-like thing, and when Gordon looked over his shoulder to do a quick headcount, he had to ask, “Uh, what the fuck is that? Please don’t poke it.”

“Hello, Gordon! I have no idea what this is!” Given his current lack of upper limbs, Coomer had settled on nearly shoving his face into it as he tried to examine it.

Bubby, of course, decided to pick it up, and before Gordon could stop him, the egg appeared to hatch on contact. “Oh. I uh. Didn’t expect that. Does this mean I’m a parent now?”

“What a beautiful child!”

The creature in question was an insectoid creature not much bigger than Bubby’s hand with a large faceted eye. When Bubby brought up his other hand to presumably touch it, a beak snapped shut very close to his finger and nearly caused him to drop it.

“Careful, before it bites your hand off!”

“I’m not _that_ stupid.”

Gordon chose to not rise to the bait and start a fight there. “We can’t take it with us, so figure out what to do with it.”

Turning back to his task at hand, he continued scrubbing mud away, and he couldn’t help but notice that the artificial skin on the arm sometimes made it look far too real.

_Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think- Wait where the fuck did that thing go?_

When he looked back over the counter, the creature Bubby had picked up was nowhere to be seen.

He had to ask, "What did you do?"

"Tranq'ed it."

Gordon blinked a few times before yelling, "HOW?"

"With tranqulizers Gordon use your goddamn brain." With that, Bubby turned away and walked over towards the desk.

"Where did you- you know what? I don't need to know." He knew a lost cause of a conversation when he saw one, and he did not want to deal with it anymore.

Once the arm was sufficiently cleaned, he placed it on the counter and nearly ran into Coomer.

“Hello, Gordon!”

“Hey, Coomer. Does this need to dry before we reattach it, or can it just go right on?” He waved towards the drying arm.

Coomer mused for a second before saying, “It _is_ waterproof, but I’ve never tried attaching the arms while they’re still wet. Maybe we should sit it in rice for a few minutes?”

“Uhhhh, we don’t have rice, dude. But we can let it air dry for a while. Don’t think we’re going anywhere soon.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder towards the resting Benrey. In a quieter voice, he asked, “How’re you holding up?”

Matching his volume, Coomer responded, “I’ll be much better when I have my arms again. At least we’re almost halfway there.”

Gordon reached over and patted Coomer’s shoulder before going back to the others. “How about we just. Take a breather for now?”

“Best idea I’ve heard all day,” Bubby said before promptly dropping to the floor. At least that spot was clean...

“… You okay?”  
  
“I’m fine!” Despite the claim, Bubby was removing the shoe on his bad foot and was checking on the injury.

Before Gordon could go over and repeat the question, Coomer lightly shoulder checked him as he passed by and gave Gordon a look.

As Gordon understood it, that was an unspoken, “Let me handle it,” gesture, and he backed away from the older scientists as they settled.

Coomer lightly leaned against Bubby on his way down to a sitting position; the ease with which he went through the motions spoke of years of practice.

_How often had Coomer been armless before?_

Gordon knew the question would be unappreciated at the moment, but it hovered in his mind like an annoying fly. He tried to distract himself by taking a seat not far from Benrey and Tommy, but Benrey was still obviously regrowing shit, which Gordon still didn’t want to focus on.

So that left trying to get Tommy to relax.

“Yo, Tommy, uhh. How long before I can sleep?” He nearly slapped himself on the forehead with how dumb that was. _Wow, great conversation starter, Gordon. Bringing more attention to their group's various injuries was a great way to ease Tommy’s worries._

The expected reaction of Tommy managing to tense up even more made Gordon vaguely wonder when the theoretical string would snap. “I don’t- It’s not an exact science. Just. If you-” Tommy cut himself off. “-I know we can’t keep you up forever.” The admission was followed by a drop in Tommy’s shoulders. “Can you stay up until night- until the we _have_ to stop and sleep later?”

The correction was appreciated. Sometimes they didn’t see the sun for a while, and at this point, Gordon didn’t even know what time of day it was. The lobby had ambient sunlight shining through the skylight, but with everything happening, he couldn’t even begin to guess how long ago that was.

Right, he needed to answer that question before Tommy wrung himself into a spiral of anxiety. “Yeah, man, I can do that.”

Tommy’s face lightened up into a faint smile, and while that gave Gordon some relief, he couldn’t help but feel sad that the normally vivid expression had faded so much.

Deciding to take the conversation back to what he actually wanted to talk about, he asked, “Wanna take a breather? The rest of us are. Can you mess up the door like the last one?”

Tommy bit his lip as he appeared to weigh the options. “This door doesn’t- This room doesn’t have a Tesla charge. So it doesn’t have the same-” Tommy waved his hand in frustration, “-Things. That the last door we blocked did.”

Gordon groaned, “OSHA Compliance?”

“OSHA Compliance.”

Sure, he knew _why_ most automatic doors didn’t have an auto-lock on them, but it made things really inconvenient right now.

“How about we just block the door with something? We’re all hanging out on the ground.” Despite that last statement, Gordon adjusted himself so that he could stand up and help.

“Take it easy, Mr. Freeman, I can get it,” Tommy said before putting a hand on Gordon’s shoulder to keep him seated.

“But-”

“It won’t take me long, just keep- Watch out for the others.”

He wasn’t entirely sure just what he meant since Bubby was already faintly snoring, and Coomer was loudly snoring, but didn’t argue as Tommy breezed past him.

Gordon would swear he only blinked before Tommy had come back and settled near him and Benrey.

“You already done?”

“Yeah, just took some- Took a few chairs and made a barrier. The counter already blocks us from view. And the- the uh, blood trail should be a warning sign...”

Tommy sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than Gordon, and it didn’t look like it was working.

“I believe you.”

The look Tommy gave him conveyed incredulousness and gratitude.

“We’ll get through this, okay? But don’t burn yourself out. I can keep an eye on things for an hour or two, if that would help?”

Sure, Gordon knew he would be an alarm system at best, but Tommy looked _so_ tired. Even if Tommy would only take a short nap, it would be better for him in the long run.

Honestly, it would be better for all of them since he was the only one not physically fucked up in some way, but Gordon’s primary concern in the moment was Tommy’s mental wellbeing.

The quiet after the question stretched for an uncomfortable minute, but Gordon knew Tommy needed to think this through on his own terms. “Sure, I can- I can take a nap. Will you wake me up in-” Tommy then seemed to notice the lack of functioning clocks in this room, “-In a little while.”

“Poggers,” Gordon nearly died as the streamer lingo slipped out. Sure his interest in video games had slipped out earlier, but the residual fear of exposing his private interests to professional colleagues never went away completely. “Sounds good, I mean.”

Tommy shrugged before handing over the assault rifle and sliding down from his seated position to a laying position.

“G’night, Mr. Freeman.”  
  
“Goodnight, Tommy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY FOR THE DELAY, I HIT SEVERAL WALLS AND THEN GOT POSSESSED BY OTHER FANDOMS. BUT I WAS DETERMINED TO GET TO THIS POINT BEFORE THE YEAR ENDED.
> 
> Also, I want to give a hUGE shoutout to Jadewhisper for helping me find a way to continue the snark scene. They wrote the dialogue starting from "What did you do" to "Where did you- you know what? I don't need to know." and gave me permission to use it since the dialogue felt so perfect for the scene. This scene had walled me for WEEKS, and it gave me the push to tie it in and finish the chapter. 
> 
> Fun fact, this was originally where the story was going to end, but as I wrote the earlier chapters, things kept getting added in, and I suddenly realized that I wanted to go a bit further than this. I'm hoping the next chapter will get to contain some of the conversations I had originally hoped to write for the finale, but by virtue of this just being a stopping point, and not the end, some of those may happen later.
> 
> Thank you so much for the comments and kudos, I hope the rest of this ride is as enjoyable as the first stretch for you all.


End file.
